“What did you want in exchange for it, Mrs. Porter?” the clerk asked. “In trade, you know, we do better than for cash.” “I want its worth in coffee,” she said, “that's all.” “We'll take it, then, and be glad to get it,” Peters said, and he put the firm, yellow lumps on the scales, made a calculation with a pencil on a piece of wrapping-paper, and began to put up the coffee. Meanwhile, she looked about her. Mayhew sat at a table in the rear. The light from a window beyond him, falling on his gray head, made it look like a bunch of cotton. “I reckon he's keeping his own books now that Nelson Floyd's away?” she said, interrogatively, to the busy clerk. “A body mought call it book-keepin',” Peters laughed, “but it's all I can do to make out his scratchin'. He writes an awful fist. The truth is, we are terribly upset by Floyd's absence, Mrs. Porter. His friends--folks that like 'im--come fer forty miles, clean across the Tennessee line, to trade with him, and when they don't see him about they go on with empty wagons to Darley. It's mighty nigh runnin' the old man crazy. He sees now who was butterin' his bread. Ef Nelson was to come back now the old cuss 'ud dress 'im out in purple an' fine linen an' keep 'im in a glass case.” “Do you expect Floyd to come back?” Mrs. Porter was putting the damp napkin back into her empty pail. Indifference lay in her face and voice but had not reached her nervous fingers. “Mrs. Porter”--Peters spoke lower. He came around the counter and joined her on the threshold of the door--“I'm a-goin' to let you on to some'n' that I'm afeard to tell even the old man. The Lord knows I wouldn't have Mrs. Snodgrass an' her team git hold of it fer the world. You see, ef I was to talk too much I mought lose my job. Anyway, I don't want to express an opinion jest on bare suspicion, but I know you've got a silent tongue in yore head, an' I think I know, too, why yo're interested, an' I'm in sympathy with you an'--an' Miss--an' with all concerned, Mrs. Porter.” “You said you were going to tell me something,” the old woman reminded him, her glance on the court-house across the street, her voice tense, probing, and somewhat resentful of his untactful reference to Cynthia. “I'm a-goin' to tell you this much,” said Peters, “but it's in strict confidence, Mrs. Porter. Thar has been a lot o' letters fer Floyd on all sorts o' business affairs accumulatin' here. Mayhew's been openin' 'em all an' keepin' 'em in a stack in a certain pigeon-hole of the desk. Now, I seed them letters thar jest last night when I closed the store, an' this mornin' early, when I opened up an' was sweepin' out, I missed 'em.”