an air of exaggerated indifference, lounging back in his chair to throw scraps to the cat, growlin

fingers or looked her full in the eyes. But their evening together had given him a vision of what life at her side might be, and he

lass. There was more wet in the air and it seemed likely to both men that the weather would "milden" toward afternoon and make the going safer. Ethan therefore proposed to his assistant that they should load the sledge at the wood-lot, as they had

ed the breakfast dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms bared to the elbow, the steam from the

e alone again like this." Instead, he reached down his tobacco-pouch from a shelf of the

an," and he heard her singin

ce and cut his knee; and when they got him up again Jotham had to go back to the barn for a strip of rag to bind the cut. Then, when the loading finally began, a sleety rain was coming down once more, and the tree trunks were so slippery that it took twice as long as usual to lift them and get them in place on the sledge. It

d sorrel had had time to fetch Zenobia from the Flats; but he knew the chance was a slight one. It turned on the state of the roads and on the possible lateness

Jotham Powell left. The hired man was still drying his wet feet at the stove, and Ethan

hension; and with that scant solace h

at the unloading, and when it was over hastened on to Michael Eady's for the glue. Eady and his assistant were both "down street," and young Denis, who seldom deigned to take their place, was lounging by the stove with a knot of the golden youth of Starkfield. They hai

you'll wait around till the old man come

I can get it down at Mrs. Homan's,"

ady climbed to the sledge and was driving on to the rival establishment. Here, after considerable search, and sympathetic questions as to what he wanted it for, and whether ordinary flo

he sets store by," she called after h

nd them. Once or twice, hearing sleigh-bells, Ethan turned his head, fancying that Zeena and Jotham might overta

g them the most perfunctory ministrations they had ever received f

as bending over a pan on the stove; but at the sound

t me get at it quick," he cried, waving the bottle in one hand

," she said in a whispe

red at each other,

not in the barn!

rom the Flats for his wife, and he drove

hen, which looked cold and squa

d, dropping his voice

ertainly. "I don't know. She

n't say

N

is pocket. "Don't fret; I'll come down and mend it in the night," he said.

te." He was not sorry to assure himself of Jotham's neutralising presence at the supper table, for Zeena was always "nervous" after a journey. But the hired ma

ter come up and dry off. Looks as if

appeal and, his vocabulary being limited, he

happened on the drive to nerve Jotham to such stoicism. Perhaps Zeena had failed to see the new doctor or had not liked

he previous evening. The table had been as carefully laid, a clear fire glowed in the st

e; then she said, as she had said the night