"No, don't waste dish-washing--I'll show you how to fix it." He cut the loaf of bread in half, pulled out a portion of the soft part and filled the hole with butter. "There we are, and nothing to bother with afterwards." "That's a right smart notion, Will--but you'll want a knife." In answer he drew out a leather case from his breast pocket and opened it. Within was knife, fork, spoon and two flat boxes for salt and pepper. "You see I'm fixed," said he. "Isn't that a cute trick!" she cried admiringly. "You're ready for most anything." "Sure," said Red. "Now, good night, old lady!" He bent down in so natural a fashion that Miss Mattie had kissed him before she knew what she was going to do. Down to the barn, through the soft June evening, went Red, whistling a Mexican love song most melodiously. Miss Mattie stood in the half-opened door and listened. Without was balm and starlight and the spirit of flowers, breathed out in odours. The quaint and pretty tune rose and fell, quavered, lilted along as it listed without regard for law and order. It struck Miss Mattie to the heart. Her girlhood, with its misty dreams of happiness, came back to her on the wings of music. "Isn't that a sweet tune," she said, with a lump in her throat. She went up into her room and sat down a moment in confusion, trying to grasp the reality of all that had happened. In the middle of the belief that these things were not so, came the regret of a sensitive mind for errors committed. She remembered with a sudden sinking, that she had not thanked him for the necklace--and the money lay even now on the parlor table, where he had cast it! This added the physical fear of thieves. Down she went and got the money, counted out, to her unmitigated astonishment, five hundred dollars and thrust it beneath her pillow with a shiver. She wished she had thought to tell him to take care of it--but suppose the thieves were to fall on him as he slept? Red's friends would have spent their sympathy on the thieves. She rejoiced that the money was where it was. Then she tried to remember what she had said throughout the evening. "Well, I suppose I must have acted like a ninny," she concluded. "But isn't he just splendid!" and as Cousin Will's handsome face, with its daring, kind eyes, came to her vision she felt comforted. "I don't believe but what he'll make every allowance for how excited I was," said she. "He seems to understand those things, for all he's such a large man. Well, it doesn't seem as if it could be true." With a half sigh Miss Mattie knelt and sent up her modest petition to her Maker and got into her little white bed. In the meantime Red's actions would have awakened suspicion. He hunted around until he found a tin can, then lit a match and rummaged the barn, amid terror-stricken squawks from the inhabitants, the hens.