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“Mauney!”

She spoke his name in a low, unsteady voice and pressed her hand against his arm. That she was not warning him of some sudden obstacle in their way, was clear, for, on looking toward the road, he saw nothing. When he turned to her, her hat was hiding her bowed face and her hand was relaxing slowly—so very slowly—and falling from his arm. The emotion that caused her breathing to be broken by queer, jerky pauses mystified him.

“Are you ill, Miss Byrne?” he ventured to ask, and noticed that his own voice was tremulous.

She shook her head slowly and began to climb out of the buggy. “No, Mauney boy,” she replied softly. “I was just lonesome, I guess. Goodnight!” He was puzzled. As he drove along he grew exceedingly impatient. There were so many things, he thought, beyond his comprehension.

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“A pretty woman is a welcome guest.”—Byron, “Beppo.”

When he reached home, Mauney found his father talking in the kitchen with William Henry McBratney while the hired girl lay on the sofa with the cat asleep on her bosom. His father, seated with his socked feet resting on the stove damper and his chair tilted back, looked up as he entered from the yard.