“Set a heap o’ store on him, don’t ye?” said Mrs. Sayles, sarcastically. “An’ when he kem a-courtin’ ye, an’ ’peared crazy ’bout’n ye, an’ ye an’ him war promised ter marry, ye couldn’t quit jowin’ at him fur one minit. Ye plumb beset him ter do like _ye_ thought war right,—ez ef _he_ hed no mo’ conscience o’ his own ’n that pullet thar, an’ hedn’t never hearn on salvation. An’ ye’d beg an’ beg him ter quit consortin’ with the moonshiners; an’ a-drinkin’ o’ apple-jack an’ sech; an’ a-rollickin’ round the kentry; an’ layin’ folkses fences down on the groun’; an’ liftin’ thar gates off’n the hinges; an’ ketchin’ thar geese, an’ pickin’ ’em, an’ scatterin’ thar feathers in the wind, an’ sendin’ ’em squawkin’ home; an’ a-playin’ kyerds; an’ a-whoopin’, an’ ridin’, an’ racin’. An’ ye war always a-preachin’ at him, an’ tryin’ ter straighten him out, an’ make him suthin’ he war never born ter be.” Her pipe was smoked out. She drew from her pocket a fragment of tobacco leaf, which was apparently not sufficiently cured for satisfactory smoking, for she laid it on the hot ashes on the hearth and watched it as it dried, her meditative eyes shaded by her pink calico sun-bonnet. “Naw, sir!” she continued, as she crumpled the bit of leaf with her fingers and crowded it into the bowl of her pipe, “I hev never liked Mink. I ain’t denyin’ it, nuther. I ain’t gamesome enough ter git tuk up with sech ways ez his’n. Mighty few folks air! But I could see reason in the critter when he ’lowed one day, right hyar by this very chimbly-place,—he sez, sez he, ‘Lethe, ye don’t like nuthin’ I do or say, an’ I’m durned ef I kin see how ye like _me_!’” Alethea’s serious, lustrous eyes, looking in at the window, saw not the uncouth interior of her home,—no! As in a vision, irradiated by some enchantment, she beheld the glamours of the idyllic past, fluctuating, waning.