Her mother looked at her keenly, without speaking, for a moment; then she said dryly, “Why, I guess you must have an awful headache. Come on kind o’ sudden like, didn’t it? I guess you’d best go up and lay down, an’ I’ll bring a mustard plaster up an’ put on your head. Ain’t nothin’ like a plaster for a headache—’specially that kind of a headache.” Bart Winn walked into the livery stable with an air of indifference put on so stiffly that it deceived no one. It was not that he did not feel perfectly satisfied with Lavinia’s explanation, but he was a trifle uneasy lest others should not see the thing with his eyes. “I guess I won’t want that rig to-night, Billy,” he said, pulling a head of timothy out of a bale of hay that stood near. “I’ll take it to-morro’ night.” “All right,” said the young fellow, with a smile that Bart did not like. “Girl sick, aigh?” “No,” said Bart, softly stripping the fuzz off the timothy. “Well, I guess I understan’,” said Billy, winking one eye, cheerfully. “I’ve b’en there myself. Girls is as much alike ’s peas—_sweet_-peas”—he interjected with a hearty laugh—“in a pod, the world over. It ain’t never safe for a fellow to come home, after bein’ away a good spell, an’ engage a buggy before findin’ out if the girl ain’t engaged to some other fello’—it ain’t noways _safe_. I smiled in my sleeve when you walked in so big an’ ordered your’n.” Bart Winn was slow to anger, but now a dull red came upon his face and neck, and settled there as if burnt into the flesh. His eyes looked dangerous, but he spoke quietly. “I guess you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Billy. I guess you hadn’t best go any furder.” Billy came slowly toward him, nettled by his tone—by its very calm, in fact. “D’ you mean to say that Laviny Vaiden ain’t goin’ a-salmon-spearin’ to-night with that dandy from New York?” Bart swallowed once or twice. “I don’t mean to say anything that’s none o’ your business,” he said. “Well, she’s been a-spearin’ with him ev’ry night sence the salmon’s b’en a-runnin’, anyway.” The strong, powerful trembling of a man who is trying to control himself now seized Bart Winn. “If you’re goin’ to put on airs with me,” continued Billy, obtusely, “I’ll just tell you a few _fax_! They don’t burn any torch in their boat, an’ they don’t spear any salmon! That’s just a blind. They go off by theirselves—clear away from the spearers, an’ they don’t come back till they see the torches a-goin’ out an’ know that we all’s a-goin’ home. It’s the town talk. Not that they say anything wrong, for we’ve all knowed Laviny sence she was a baby; but it’s as plain as the nose on a man’s face that you ain’t in it there since that dood come.”