himself in the dialect of his family and his ancestors. “She's 'way above me, and I ought to ha' known it,” he further said, with the meekness of an humble but fiercely independent race, which is meek to itself alone. He would have maintained his equality with his last breath to an opponent; in his heart of hearts he felt himself below the scion of the one old gentle family of his native village.

This young Evelina, by the fine dignity which had been born with her and not acquired by precept and example, by the sweetly formal diction which seemed her native tongue, had filled him with awe. Now, when he thought she was angered with him, he felt beneath her lady feet, his nostrils choked with a spiritual dust of humiliation.

He went forward blindly. The dusk had deepened; from either side of the road, from the mysterious gloom of the bushes, came the twangs of the katydids, like some coarse rustic quarrellers, each striving for the last word in a dispute not even dignified by excess of passion.

Suddenly somebody jostled him to his own side of the path. “That you, Thomas? Where you been?” said a voice in his ear.

“That you, father? Down to the post-office.”

“Who was that you was talkin' with back there?”

“Miss Evelina Leonard.”

“That girl that's stayin' there—to the old Squire's?”

“Yes.” The son tried to move on, but his father stood before him dumbly for a minute. “I must be going, father. I've got to work on my sermon,” Thomas said, impatiently.

“Wait a minute,” said his father. “I've got something to say to ye, Thomas, an' this is as good a time to say it as any. There ain't anybody 'round. I don't know as ye'll thank me for it—but mother said the other day that she thought you'd kind of an idea—she said you asked her if she thought it would be anything out of the way for you to go up to the Squire's to make a call. Mother she thinks you can step in anywheres, but I don't know. I know your book-learnin' and your bein' a minister has set you up a good deal higher than your mother and me and any of our folks, and I feel as if you were good enough for anybody, as far as that goes; but that ain't all. Some folks have different startin'-points in this world, and they see things different; and when they do, it ain't much use tryin' to make them walk alongside and see things alike. Their eyes have got different cants, and they ain't able to help it. Now this girl she's related to the old Squire, and she's been brought up different, and she started ahead, even if her father did lose all his property. She 'ain't never eat in the kitchen, nor been scart to set down in the parlor, and satin and velvet, and silver spoons, and cream-pots 'ain't never looked anything out of the common to her, and they always will to you. No matter how many such things you may live to have, they'll always get a little the better of ye. She'll be 'way above 'em; and you won't, no matter how hard you try. Some ideas can't never mix; and when ideas can't mix, folks can't.”

“I never said they could,” returned Thomas, shortly. “I can't stop to talk any longer, father. I must go home.”

“No, you wait a minute, Thomas. I'm goin' to say out what I started to, and then I sha'n't ever bring it up again. What I was comin' at was this: I wanted to warn ye a little. You mustn't set too much store by little things that you think mean consider'ble when they don't. Looks don't count for much, and I want you to remember it, and not be upset by 'em.”

Thomas gave a great start and colored high. “I'd like to know what you mean, father,” he cried, sharply.

“Nothin'. I don't mean nothin', only I'm older'n you, and it's come in my way to know some things, and it's fittin' you should profit by it. A young woman's looks at you don't count for much. I don't s'pose she knows why she gives 'em herself half the time; they ain't like us. It's best you should make up your mind to it; if you don't, you may find it out by the hardest. That's all. I ain't never goin' to bring this up again.”

“I'd like to know what you mean, father.” Thomas's voice shook with embarrassment and anger.

“I ain't goin' to say anything more about it,” replied the old man. “Mary Ann Pease and Arabella Mann are both in the settin'-room with your mother. I thought I'd tell ye, in case ye didn't want to see 'em, and wanted to go to work on your sermon.”

Thomas made an impatient ejaculation as he strode off. When he reached the large white house where he lived he skirted it carefully. The chirping treble of girlish voices came from the open sitting-room window, and he caught a glimpse of a smooth brown head and a high shell comb in front of the candle-light. The young minister tiptoed in the back door and across the kitchen to the back stairs. The sitting-room door was open, and the candle-light streamed out, and the treble voices rose high. Thomas, advancing through the dusky kitchen with cautious steps, encountered suddenly a chair in the dark corner by the stairs, and just saved himself from falling. There was a startled outcry from the sitting-room, and his mother came running into the kitchen with a candle.

“Who is it?” she demanded, valiantly. Then she started and gasped as her son confronted her. He shook a furious warning fist at the sitting-room door and his mother, and edged towards the stairs. She followed him close. “Hadn't you better jest step in a minute?” she whispered. “Them girls have been here an hour, and I know they're waitin' to see you.” Thomas shook his head fiercely, and swung himself around the corner into the dark crook of the back stairs. His mother thrust the candle into his hand. “Take this, or you'll break your neck on them stairs,” she whispered.

Thomas, stealing up the stairs like a cat, heard one of the girls call to his mother—“Is it robbers, Mis' Merriam? Want us to come an' help tackle 'em?”—and he fairly shuddered; for Evelina's gentle-lady speech was still in his ears, and this rude girlish call seemed to jar upon his sensibilities.

“The idea of any girl screeching out like that,” he muttered. And if he had carried speech as far as his thought, he would have added, “when Evelina is a girl!”

He was so angry that he did not laugh when he heard his mother answer back, in those conclusive tones of hers that were wont to silence all argument: “It ain't anything. Don't be scared. I'm coming right back.” Mrs. Merriam scorned subterfuges. She took always a silent stand in a difficulty, and let people infer what they would. When Mary Ann Pease inquired if it was the cat that had made the noise, she asked if her mother had finished her blue and white counterpane.

The two girls waited a half-hour longer, then they went home. “What do you s'pose made that noise out in the kitchen?” asked Arabella Mann of Mary Ann Pease, the minute they were out-of-doors.

“I don't know,” replied Mary Ann Pease. She was a broad-backed young girl, and looked like a matron as she hurried along in the dusk.

“Well, I know what I think it was,” said Arabella Mann, moving ahead with sharp jerks of her little dark body.

“What?”

“It was him.”

“You don't mean—”

“I think it was Thomas Merriam, and he was tryin' to get up the back stairs unbeknownst to anybody, and he run into something.”

“What for?”

“Because he didn't want to see us.”

“Now, Arabella Mann, I don't believe it! He's always real pleasant to me.”

“Well, I do believe it, and I guess he'll know it when I set foot in that house again. I guess he'll find out I didn't go there to see him! He needn't feel so fine, if he is the minister; his folks ain't any better than mine, an' we've got 'nough sight handsomer furniture in our parlor.”

“Did you see how the tallow had all run down over the candles?”

“Yes, I did. She gave that candle she carried out in the kitchen to him, too.