Hawkins raised his beautiful eyes to hers. He saw a very pretty girl, with frank gray eyes glistening with excitement, with two red, slightly freckled cheeks glowing a little under his eyes, with a short scarlet upper-lip turned back, like a rose-leaf, over a little line of white teeth, as she breathed somewhat hurriedly in her nervous excitement. He saw all this calmly, quietly, and, save for the natural uneasiness of a shy, reticent man, I fear without a quickening of his pulse. “I knowed it,” he said simply. “I heerd ye as I kem up.” Miss Milly was furious at his grammar, his dialect, his coolness, and, still more, at the suspicion that he was an active member of her in visible elaque. “Ah!” she said, still smiling. “Then I think I heard YOU”-- “I reckon not,” he interrupted gravely. “I didn't stay long. I found the boys hanging round the house, and I allowed at first I'd go in and kinder warn you; but they promised to keep still: and you looked so comfortable, and wrapped up in your music, that I hadn't the heart to disturb you, and kem away. I hope,” he added earnestly, “they didn't let on ez they heerd you. They ain't a bad lot,--them Blazin' Star boys--though they're a little hard at times. But they'd no more hurt ye then they would a--a--a cat!” continued Mr. Hawkins, blushing with a faint apprehension of the inelegance of his simile. “No, no!” said Miss Milly, feeling suddenly very angry with herself, the “Fool,” and the entire male population of Five Forks. “No! I have behaved foolishly, I suppose--and, if they HAD, it would have served me right. But I only wanted to apologize to you. You'll find every thing as you left it. Good-day!” She turned to go. Mr. Hawkins began to feel embarrassed. “I'd have asked ye to sit down,” he said finally, “if it hed been a place fit for a lady. I oughter done so, enny way. I don't know what kept me from it. But I ain't well, miss. Times I get a sort o' dumb ager,--it's the ditches, I think, miss,--and I don't seem to hev my wits about me.” Instantly Miss Arnot was all sympathy: her quick woman's heart was touched. “Can I--can any thing be done?” she asked more timidly than she had before spoken. “No--not onless ye remember suthin' about these pills.” He exhibited a box containing about half a dozen. “I forget the direction--I don't seem to remember much, any way, these times. They're 'Jones's Vegetable Compound.' If ye've ever took 'em, ye'll remember whether the reg'lar dose is eight. They ain't but six here. But perhaps ye never tuk any,” he added deprecatingly. “No,” said Miss Milly curtly. She had usually a keen sense of the ludicrous; but somehow Mr. Hawkins's eccentricity only pained her. “Will you let me see you to the foot of the hill?” he said again, after another embarrassing pause.