made him believe all and more than the girl had told him. “Poor child!” he said again; “you haven’t told me yet your first name.”

“Ginevra,” she answered. “My own mother liked it; my stepmother says it’s the name of a fool. She thinks she’s young an’ han’some; but I allow she’s sending me off because I’m a right smart, the best-favoured of the two. She wants to get married again, an’ thar ain’t but one bachelor up our way, so she’s skeered he’d take first pick of me.”

“My kingdom!” said the man who worked for Collister. “If there’s somebody up your way that you know, and that likes you, why didn’t you go and take your chances with him?”

A hot flush rushed over the girl’s face. “Does you-all think I’d be talkin’ like this to a man I knowed?” she demanded. She stared angrily until her lips began to quiver. “An’ besides, I hate him!” she cried. “He’s not a fittin’ man for such as me.”

“You poor child!” he said again.

She caught the compassion of his eyes. “What had any girl ought to do out hyar in the pineys if she was lef’ like me? I’ve hearn o’ places whar girls could find work, an’ my stepmother she allowed I could go to the oyster-factories in Potosi; but whar would I stay? An’ then I went to the factories once with my paw, an’ the air round ’em made me sick. You see, I was raised in the pineys, an’ they had a different smell.”

He shook his head, though kindly, at so slight a reason, and the sharp pain of his disapproval crossed her face. “Oh, you don’t know anything about it,” she cried desperately; “thar ain’t no man that can tell how it feels for a girl that’s had a father that’s made of her like mine did to be turned right out to face a whole townful that she never saw. Can’t you see how if you was skeered it would be a heap easier jus’ to face one man? An’ then I’d hearn no end about Mr. Collister, an’ some of it was funny, an’ thar wa’n’t none of it very bad; so I jus’ made up my mind to come round hyar an’ see for myse’f what like he was. You see,” she went on, with a lift of the head, “it was for the money, but it was for the honourableness, too; an’ I’d cross my heart an’ swear to you on the Bible that when I come hyar I hadn’t no thought that anybody could think it was onder-reachin’ Mr. Collister. I thought he’d be right proud, an’ before we got to talking I never sensed that it would be a hard thing to name to him; but now—” her voice trembled and broke. “Oh,” she cried, “I wished I’d never come!”

The man looked away from her. “Don’t wish it,” he said huskily. “Collister ought to be proud if he can have you for his wife; and he would give you a good home and everything your heart could ask for.”

Tears sprang from her eyes, and she dropped her head upon her knees to hide them. “Oh, I know, I know,” she sobbed; “but I’d rather marry you!”

“O-oh!” breathed the man who worked for Collister; “I’d so much rather that you did.” And with a laugh of pure delight he caught her up into his arms.

When they left the store a red blaze of sunset shone between the trunks of the pine trees. The man fastened the padlock behind them, and they started in a lover’s silence along the road. The big farm was as empty and as lifeless as ever, except for the lonesome neighing of a horse in the barnyard, and for a single straight blue thread of smoke which rose from one of the little houses. The girl pointed at it, and smiled.

“He’s having to get his own supper to-night,” she said, “but I’ll make it up to him; I’ll make his light bread jus’ the same.”

“Yes,” he said, “you’d better; for, whatever he’s been to other folks, he’s always been good to me; an’ please God, he’s going to be mighty good to you.”