Then the old woman on the other side raised her voice unexpectedly, and she spoke to her granddaughter, Mrs. Lynn. “You are a fool,” said she, “if you wouldn't rather hev Serrah merry a man like Hyacinthus Ware, with all his money and livin' in the biggest house in Adams, than a man like John Mangam, who sets an' sets an' sets the hull evenin' and never opens his mouth to say boo to a goose, and beside bein' threatened with a suit for breach.” “I don't care who she marries, as long as she is happy,” said Sarah's mother. “Well, I'm goin',” said the old woman. “I left my winders open, and I think there's a shower comin' up.” She rose, and Mrs. Wilford Biggs at the same time. Sarah's mother went into the house. “Won't you?” whispered the strange lady, and it was as if a rose whispered in Sarah's ear. “I didn't know that he--I thought--” stammered Sarah. Sarah did not exactly know when the lady left and when Hyacinthus came, but after a while they were sitting side by side on the door-step, and the moon was rising over the mountain, and the wonderful shadows were gathering about them like a company of wedding-guests. JANE'S GRAY EYES BY SEWELL FORD When _The Insurgent_ took its place among the “best six sellers,” Decatur Brown formed several good resolutions. He would not have himself photographed in a literary pose, holding a book on his knee, or propping his forehead up with one hand and gazing dreamily into space; he would not accept the praise of newspaper reviewers as laurel dropped from Olympus; and he would not tell “how he wrote it.” Firmly he held to this commendable programme, despite frequent urgings to depart from it. Yet observe what pitfalls beset the path of the popular fictionist. There came a breezy, shrewd-eyed young woman of beguiling tongue who announced herself as a “lady journalist.” “Now for goodness' sake don't shy,” she pleaded. “I'm not going to ask about your literary methods, or do a kodak write-up of the way you brush your hair, or any of that rot. I merely want you to say something about Sunday Weeks. That's legitimate, isn't it? Sunday's a public character now, you know. Every one talks about her. So why shouldn't you, who know her best?” It was the voice of the siren. Decatur Brown should have recognized it as such. But the breezy young person was so plausible, she bubbled with such enthusiasm for his heroine, that in the end he yielded. He talked of Sunday Weeks. And such talk! Obviously the “lady journalist” had come all primed with the rather shop-worn theory that the Sunday Weeks who figured as the heroine of _The Insurgent_ must be a real personage, a young woman in whom Decatur Brown took more than a literary interest. Possibly the cards were ready to be sent out.