“I tell you I listened close after that, but there was not a sound until Jim shove his chair and got up to go and she took the candle to the outside door, and then she come in and went right off to bed. “Next mornin’ I looked at her sharper’n ever but I couldn’t see a shadder on her cheek. She was jest as bloomin’ and as quiet as ever, and I knowed she cared more fer my leetle finger than fer the whole of Jim Whiffles’ body. “Next time he came it was near New Year’s and he sot a big red apple plump in her lap; but she did not so much as say ‘thankee.’ I thought she kinder of turned toward me, as much as to say, ‘Ef ye had done it, all right.’ “‘But I didn’t _know_, and I reckoned I needn’t begrudge Jim an evenin’s lookin’ at her. So I off to bed ag’in. I was thinkin’ how mean I had been about listenin’ on the stairs, when up through the big stovepipe hole come these words, jerked out as usual: ‘I think sometime there’s goin’ to be a weddin’ up to our meetin’-house.’ “‘Like as not.’ “‘And I reckon Jim Whiffles is goin’ to pay the dominee.’ “‘Likely.’ “That was all. My heart beat so I thought they must hear it, so I covered my head with the bed clothes, and in five minutes more he went away, callin’ out as he drove off, ‘Good-night!’ “I did not sleep much, but I kep’ up a thinkin’; and at last I made out that nobody’d be such a fool as to ask a woman to have him that way; and it must be Jim felt kinder sneakin’, arter visitin’ of her, and let her know he was a-goin to marry Ary Edwards that I had heard tell he went with. So I was comforted ag’in. “It wa’n’t more’n two weeks afore I was took down with a fever. Pamely nursed me night and day, and every time I see her I said to myself, ‘Jest the first time I’ve got strength to walk to the dominee’s house we’ll be made happy.’ Dear little soul! What a good supper she laid on the table the night I was so tired out with doin’ of the milkin’, havin’ done nothin’ fer so long. “‘Ezra,’ she says, and her face flushed up; ‘Ezra eat. I’ve cooked it fer you.’ “I wanted to blurt right out then that I loved her, but I didn’t. “I had to tuck myself up mighty early, for I was clean beat out, and I declare fer it, but I was jest fallin’ into a doze like when I heard Jim Whiffles come. Pamely wa’n’t done the dishes, so she clattered away, and at last sot down to knittin’. Nary one spoke much, only to tell a word or two about the snow storm that was a-brewin’. And I was comforted ag’in, but it was short measure. When the clock had struck nine Jim got up, and while he was puttin’ on his top coat I heard him say: “‘Pamely, I was a-tellin’ ye last time I was here about Jim Whiffles paying the preacher?’ “‘Jest so.’ “‘And you was the gal that the dominee told to love and obey her man.’ “‘Jest so.’