"Well, it's true enough. I expect him along in three-quarters of an hour." "Well, he won't come." That strange savage thrill in his voice frightened her, and before she could remember they were not going together, she was clinging to his arm. "O Jerry," she breathed, "you ain't done him any mischief?" But his arms were about her and she was locked to his heart. "No," he said, "I ain't--yet." He laughed a little. "I stood out in the road till I heard him go into the barn to harness. Then he went back into the house to change his clo'es. An' I walked into the barn an' unblanketed the horse an' slung away the bells an' druv the horse down to the meetin'-house, an' left him there in the sheds." Stella laughed with the delight of it. She felt wild and happy, and it came to her that a man who could behave like this when he had made up his mind, might be allowed a long time in coming to it. But she tried reproving him. "O Jerry, the horse'll freeze to death!" "No, he won't. He's all blanketed. Besides, little Jim Pillsbury's there tendin' the fire for the sociable, an' he'll find him. Now--" his voice took on an added depth of that strange new quality she shivered under--"Matt'll be over here in a minute to tell you he's lost his horse an' can't go. You want me to harness up an' take him an' you in the old pung, or you want to stay here with me?" Stella touched his cheek with her finger in a way she had, and he remembered and bent and kissed her. "All right," he said. "That suits me. We'll stay here. Only, I don't want to put ye to no shame before Matt. That's why I played a trick on him instid o' breakin' his bones." "O Jerry!" She had not meant to tell him, but it seemed she must. "I wasn't goin' with him alone. Lottie was goin', too. I told him I wouldn't any other way." A GRIEF DEFERRED When Clelia May set forth, as she did three and four times in the week, to hurry through the half-mile of pine woods between her house and Sabrina Thorne's, the family usually asked her, with the tolerant smile accorded to old jokes, whether she was going to see her intimate friend. Clelia always answered from a good-natured acceptance of the pleasantry, and went on, not in the least puzzled by the certainty that although she was but twenty-three and Sabrina was sixty, they were in all ways companionable. It had begun when Clelia, a child of ten, had had a temper-fit at home, and started out to join the Shakers. She had met a turkey-gobbler at Sabrina's gate, and, ashamed to cry but too obstinate to run, had stood in blank horror until Sabrina came out and routed the foe. Then Sabrina had taken her in to eat honey and spend an enchanted afternoon. After that Sabrina's house was the delectable land, and Clelia fled to it when she was happy or when the world was against her.