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responded, "Yes, I guess we do," as impersonally as if he had not been one of the disturbers on Sunday night.

By this time the conversation was well launched, apparently, but somehow Abner's unprogressive "I guess we do," finished that topic completely and left the two young persons in another painful lacuna. Abner began thinking frantically for the next thing to say. The topic of his mule's shoe bobbed up again in his mind but was put down. However, it effectively held its own against all other themes.

The youth and the girl looked at each other, caught by this queer shy silence of hill lovers. Finally it became impossible to remain any longer in each other's company. Nessie said in a mechanical tone, "I guess Miss Scovell's waiting dinner for me," and went inside.

Abner drew a long breath as she disappeared. As much as he regretted her going, still—it was a relief. He got up from the swing, went out the gate and up toward the garage.

As he went he recalled every word of their conversation exactly as if someone were repeating it in his ears. Nessie had sewed till her back ached—she was a milliner and had to trim hats for a living—it made her tired. This fact filled Abner with distress. If he could only take this burden from her! If he and this blonde girl with the burnished yellow hair and blue eyes could only . . .

Now it was just at this point that Abner recalled the fellow Shallburger's dictum on the necessity of a man's making a living wage—a wage on which a man could marry, rear children, and keep the world going on. . . .

The "world going on" now meant for Abner, Nessie Sutton living in pleasant idleness in some pleasant home where he came after each day's work.

And Nessie should do nothing! She should rest from morning till night in a porch swing! He was emphatic in his thoughts about that. The æsthetic justification of mere beauty—of a delicate untoiling blooming—filled Abner with a tenderness he had never known before.