him, adding with gentle emphasis, “I’m going up!”

“Down,” said the mountaineer curtly.

She stared after him as he strode down the hill, her soft under lip thrust out, and again she gave the quick little sigh.

“Nancy, honey, you are mighty sweet and kind,” Miss Ada was adoring. “You always want to put everybody at their ease. I’ll just walk a little piece with you,” she added, and again, as on the day of Dr. Darrow’s funeral, she tripped delicately by the side of her young connection, and again, incredibly,[93] the young connection turned the talk, which Miss Ada would have chosen to be about Tenafees, to the mountaineer.

[93]

“Is Luke Manders still in the mill, Cousin Ada?”

“Why, yes; yes, he is still employed there. But you haven’t told me about dear Mary-Lou Tenafee! She’s managing that great plantation all soul alone? My, but she is a remarkable girl, Nancy, my dear! We may well be proud of her. So young, so lovely, widowed so early, yet——”

But Nancy Carey was pursuing her own line with soft ruthlessness. “Then, I suppose he’s doing very well, or he wouldn’t have stayed so long?”

“He—yes, I—I understand that he has advanced. He is, I believe, a good worker. People like that have great physical endurance, you know, and——”

To complete the flash-back of three years, Mr. ’Gene Carey’s daughter made almost the identical remark that she made then, and there was wistfulness in her voice, and soft wonder. “Cousin Ada, I do think he’s the handsomest thing I ever saw in real life....”

Glen, meanwhile, tried to fling off her unhappy preoccupation and listen to her caller.

“So you’ve lost both your father and your mother?” She was brusque about it, but her bright little eyes were kind.

[94]“Yes.” She couldn’t be expansive about it, but she forced herself to be civil. “And your grandmother is still living?”

[94]

Miss Jennings laughed. “I’ll say she is! Say, the Grim Reaper is a bum shot, isn’t he? Grammer’s about a thousand and two, and gets crabbeder every minute. Your people were youngish, and good scouts, as I remember. You liked them both, didn’t you?” Glen’s murmur did not stop her. “Well, I liked my Dad; I was 

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