Astounded, and warningly pinched on the arm, Ann, with a lingering backward look, left the room and reluctantly climbed the stairs.

"You'll have to excuse me, Miss Sally-Lou, here's your paper," Mrs. Drake was slowly recovering discretion. "I'll have to see about Dolly. John's right, she ain't well--she ain't--oh, my Lord, I don't know what to make of it!"

"I see she is sort o' upset," Miss Sally-Lou said, "an I don't wonder. I oughtn't to have sprung it so sudden-like. I'll tell you all good day. I'll have to run along. If thar's anything I kin do for Dolly just let me know. I'm a good hand about a sick-bed, an' I know how to give medicine. If Dolly gets worse, send word to me, an' I'll step right over. This may go hard with her. You know I think that idle scamp might 'a' had better to do than--"

But Mrs. Drake, obeying her brother's imperative nod, was moving toward the stairs. Sally-Lou and Webb were left together. Her glance fell before the fiercest glare she had ever seen shoot from a masculine eye, and yet Webb's freckled face was valiantly digging up a smile.

"I see what you thought," he laughed. "You went an' thought Dolly was in love with that town dude. Shucks, she seed through 'im from the fust throw out o' the box. She liked to chat with 'im now an' then, but la, me! if you women are so dead bent on splicin' folks why don't you keep your eyes open? Listen to me, an' see if I ain't right. You watch an' see if Dolly an' Warren Wilks--"

"Pshaw!" Miss Sally-Lou sniffed. "Dolly will never give Warren a second thought--not now, nohow. She's got 'er sights up, an' she'll never lower 'em ag'in."

Webb, almost outwitted, stood on the edge of the porch and watched the spinster trip down the walk. She glanced over her shoulder coquettishly. "You are losin' all your gallant ways, Mr. John," she simpered. "You don't even open the gate for visitin' ladies here lately."

"I greased that latch t'other day," he answered, laconically. "It works as easy as the trigger of a mouse-trap. I don't know as I ever was a woman's jumpin'rjack. I ain't one o' the fellers that fan flies off'n 'em at meetin'. If they draw flies an' gnats that's the'r lookout, not mine."




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