load of vegetables to sell, on the preceding evening—some friends had persuaded him and “his old woman” to spend the night, and they were now going home.     

       Stuart peered under the coal-scuttle bonnet.     

       “And this is your ‘old woman’ my friend,” he said with a laugh.     

       “Jest so, sir,” was the wheezy reply of the fat old countryman, smiling sweetly. “You see she would come along, sir. Womankind is mighty contrary!”      

       “A profound sentiment!” laughed Stuart, and riding on without further words, he left the countryman free to proceed on his way.     

       We crossed a little stream, rode on toward Fleetwood, and had nearly reached Brandy when Stuart suddenly reined in his horse.     

       “Do you know what I think,” he said, “that I have done a foolish thing?”      

       “What, general?”      

       “To let that old fellow go on. I don’t like his looks.”      

       “The old countryman?”      

       “Yes; I wish I had arrested him—him and his wife.”      

       “Arrested them?”      

       Stuart nodded.     

       “I have an instinct about rascals, Surry; and something tells me that I have been guilty of an imprudence.”      

       “Was not his explanation satisfactory?”      

       “No.”      

       “What could be wrong?”      

       “Everything.”      

       “And his ‘old woman,’” I said, laughing; “think of that highly respectable dame.”      

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