bear upon
Rube's case.

He did not move; no wonder; gorged on sweets, Rube had neither power
nor inclination to be gone.

After a little, a group of young men stationed themselves at a given
point, not far from where this couple sat. They had been into an
adjacent farm-house and changed their clothes, and now appeared in
knee pants, red stockings, and white jackets, a striking and
interesting accessory to an already animated and glowing landscape. In
this group of picturesque figures Jerome was conspicuous. Jerome
looked well in anything, and generally well to everybody.

Not so, to-day.

To one pair of eyes, not distant, he now loomed up blacker in broad
daylight than the blackest Mephistopheles in a howling Walpurgis
night.

He saw Rube beside her, and she noted his start of surprise.

"Have a care!" cogitated Mell. "There may be surprises in store for
you--greater than this and not so easily brooked."

She turned her back upon him and gave her whole attention again to
Rube. The first duty of a woman is to respect herself, the second duty
of a woman is to enforce the respect of others. Some of these days
Jerome Devonhough would be only too glad if she would deign to permit
him to speak to her.

"Aren't you going to take part?" she asked her companion.

"No; I'm not in trim, and it's no use trying to beat Devonhough."

"_You_ could beat him," said she. She spoke with confidence and
seductively.

"You are awfully complimentary, I declare! Do you wish me to run,
Melville?"

"I do. Yes, Rube, I wish it particularly. Why should this stranger
carry off the palm over our own boys?"

"For the best of reasons. He deserves to carry it off. Devonhough can
out-run, out-leap, out-ride, out-do anything in the county."

"Except _you_," again insinuated Mell.

"Say! what makes you believe so strong in me?"

"Nothing makes me, but--I cannot help it!"

At this point, dear reader, if you are a man, and happily neither
blind, nor deaf, nor over eighty years of age, take Rube's seat for a
moment, at Mell's feet. Let her tell you in the sweetest tones, that
she cannot help believing in you strong--let her bend upon you a
glance sweeter than the tones, stronger than the words, and then say,
honestly, don't you feel, as Rube did at this juncture, mighty queer?

Under the spell, her victim stirred--he lifted himself slowly toward
her, inquiring in a low voice, but with intense energy:

"Melville, are you fooling me?