|WARREN strode down the narrow winding path through the meadow. He crossed a swift-flowing creek on a narrow, sagging foot-log and went on toward the swamp. When he was some distance from the cabin he descried, beyond a patch of blackberry vines and a morass full of pond-lilies and bulrushes, the blurred outlines of a solitary figure. Then an unexpected sound fell upon his ears. It was a piping, uncertain voice endeavoring to run the scale after the manner of the exercises in a rural singing-class. It was Mrs. Warren. She was strolling toward him, beating time with a stiff index-finger held out before her. “That's her!” Jeff mused. “She'll sing a different tune when I tell her what I know. By gum, the boy certainly floored me! Who would 'a thought it? Not me, the Lord knows.” Skirting the boggy ground by passing along a little rise where velvety mullein-stalks grew in profusion, Jeff came face to face with his wife. With a crude instinct for dramatic surprise, he stood still without speaking and allowed her to approach closer to him. Listlessly intoning her scale and cutting the half darkness with her finger, she stopped with a start. Then, recognizing him, she laughed, and advanced confidently. “You caught me,” she said, abashed. “I was jest wonderin' if me'n you'd ever sing another note. I declare my voice is all out o' whack. Some say, losin' the teeth spoils a voice. Well, we ain't goin' out to meetin', noway, I reckon, an' so we won't be asked to sing by the old crowd. I hain't got a thing fit to put on, an' they just sha'n't poke fun at my looks.” “I thought you hit that top-note purty clear just now,” he said, evasively. He was wondering how he could smoothly explain the thing which had so startlingly upset all his calculations, and in which she was so soon to participate. “I couldn't git the cow an' calf,” she listlessly informed him. “The fool beasts went clean over the hill. Bob Triggs saw 'em. He said they couldn't cross the river, an' we can drive 'em up to-morrow. But you don't get no milk to-night. Say, Jeff, just for the fun of it, let's try our old brag duet. If we kept at it in the evenin' for a few days we might sorter get back into harness.” “I don't want to sing no more, never no more,” he answered, and something in the ring of his voice riveted her attention. She suddenly laid her hand on his arm and forced him to look at her. “Jeff, what's the matter?” she demanded, the comers of her sad mouth drooping in dire expectation. “Some'n has happened. I know it. You come to meet me to let me know. Oh, Lord, Lord! you an' Paul hain't met--”