"Nobody but me viewed it," he went on after a moment of unfruitful expectation. "I tried other folks, an' they seen nuthin'. An' by that I 'lowed it hed some charge fur me, some leadin'. Stars hev been messengers afore this." He interposed this affirmation of precedent for proof. His senses were keen. He had not failed to note the ring of incredulity in Kenniston's voice. He paused, thinking again of the wise men of the East, and the blessed path to the cradled Christ as the Star guided them. He sighed deeply as he plucked off the yellow plumes of a wayside spray of goldenrod. The fragments floated away on the stream, and he drearily lifted his haggard eyes to the broad whiteness of the day brightening over all the purple mountains and bronze-green valleys; here all miracles exhaled with the mists of the night and the evanescence of the stars. The atmosphere of the practical, the prosaic, the recognized and thrice-tried forces of nature was paramount. Naught seemed to exist that man in his ignorant cognoscence had not explored. But he had expected no miracle; he had sought no wonderful worldly gifts or graces. True, the will of God is much to know, but he had thought that with so signal an intimation a leading might be vouchsafed. Had not other men followed a star to Christ? And was there naught for him, no little thing for him to do? Did that gracious supernal stellular presence shine on him, and him alone, only to amaze, to baffle, to dismay him,--to find his life but poorly furnished, and to leave it empty? "I got no leadin' out'n it," he said drearily. "It jes' disappeared somehows. I dunno ef ez suddint ez it kem or no, bein' ez several nights war rainy and clouded over. It's gone!" Something in his dreary tone smote upon Julia's preoccupied faculties. Whether she harbored rancor against him for Jack Espey's sake, whether she resented his criticism of her father, whether she repelled the intrusion of the consciousness of any other emotion than the paramount emotion which possessed her, and love crowded out and trampled on pity, she spoke with a keen fling of satire. "Waal, ef yer star hev petered out, ye hed better go an' get Ad'licia ter hearten ye up by tellin' ye ter take notice how many stars thar be lef'. Ye'll be lighted full well on occasion." He flushed at the taunt, but love is of long patience. "Air ye mad at Ad'licia?" he queried, interested in aught that touched Julia. "Naw--yes"--She hesitated, interested herself. "That is, I can't holp bein' mad with the idjit fur bein' _sech_ a idjit." "How is she a idjit?" demanded Larrabee. "Fur not marryin' Jack Espey whenst she hed the chance. Dad an' Luther would hev stood off Ross an' sech cattle, or gin bond fur him an' patched up things somehow. Ye know they would. Ef I hed been in her place, now, an' ef he hed axed _me_"--