David felt this without, at first, taking much notice of it. He was happy in his engagement and he liked Mary better each day. There was a wholesome, full-blooded womanliness in all she did and a frankness in her affection that satisfied him. The first shock to his evenly balanced mind came one day when he was walking through the main street with her. The young dominie was swinging down the street at her side, his head high and his clear gray eyes looking straight ahead, when something whizzed past his face. They were near the corner of a street. Along the edge of the walk a half dozen farm wagons stood and in the nearest sat Mrs. Hinch, her sunbonnet thrown back and her Paisley shawl--her finest possession--over her shoulders. Old Hinch was clambering into the wagon and had his best foot on the hub of a wheel. The missile that whizzed past David's face was an egg. It struck old Hinch on the temple and broke, scattering the yolk upon the waist of Mrs. Hinch's calico dress and upon her shawl and her face. Some boy had grasped an egg from a box before a grocer's window and had thrown it. The lad darted around the corner and old Hinch turned, grasping his whip and scowling through his bristly eyebrows. The corner loafers laughed. What David did was not much. He drew his handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to the faded woman in the wagon, that she might remove the stain of egg. She wiped her face and began removing the egg from her garments and David and Mary moved on. “Why did you do that!” Mary asked. “Don't you know them! They're Copperheads.” “She was badly spattered. She seemed at a loss what to do.” “Didn't you _know_ they were Copperheads!” “I did not know. That would have made no difference. She was distressed.” “Well, please, David, do not help any more distressed Copperheads when I am with you,” Mary said. “Everyone in front of the store saw you. Oh! I wouldn't raise my little finger to help a Copperhead if she was dying! I hate them! They ought to be egged out of town, all of them.” Some two weeks later old Hinch drove up to the little manse and knocked on David's door. He had the handkerchief, washed, ironed and folded in a bit of white paper, and a dozen fresh-laid eggs in a small basket. “Ma sent me 'round with these,” old Hinch said. “Sort of a 'thank you.' She 'minded me particular not to throw the eggs at you.” There was almost a twinkle in his eyes as he repeated his wife's little joke. He would not enter the manse but sidled himself back to his wagon and drove away.