One morning about the first of May, Virginia Hemingway went to Wilson’s store to purchase some sewing-thread she needed. The long, narrow room was crowded with farmers and mountaineers, and Wilson had called in several neighbors to help him show and sell his wares. Langdon Chester was there, a fine double-barrelled shot-gun and fishing-rod under his arm, wearing a slouch hat and hunter’s suit, his handsome face well tanned by exposure to the sun in the field and on the banks of the mountain streams. He was buying a reel and a metallic fly that worked with a spring and was set like a trap. Fred Masters was there, lounging about behind the counters, and now and then "making a sale" of some small article from the shelves or show-cases. He had opened his big sample trunks at the hotel in Springtown, half a mile distant, and a buggy and pair of horses were at the door, with which he intended to transport the store-keeper to his sample-room as soon as business became quieter. Seeing the store so crowded, Virginia only looked in at the door and walked across the street and sat down in Mrs. Wilson’s sitting-room to rest and wait for a better opportunity to get what she had come for. Langdon Chester had recognized an old school-mate in the drummer, but he seemed not to care to show marked cordiality. However, the travelling man was no stickler for formality. He came from behind the counter and cordially slapped Langdon on the shoulder. "How are you, old chap?" he asked; "still rusticating on the old man’s bounty, eh? When you left college you were going into the law, and soar like an eagle with the worm of Liberty in its beak skyward through the balmy air of politics, by the aid of all the ’pulls’ of influential kin and money, but here you are as easy-going as of old." "It was the only thing open to me," Chester said, with a flush of vexation. "You see, my father’s getting old, Masters, and the management of our big place here was rather too much for him, and so—"