[Illustration: "Tilda pacing back and forth at her spinning-wheel"] "Why, don't you know me, Mother Greely?" Steve asked. "I shore don't," she replied, pushing her spectacles up on her nose and peering earnestly through them. "No," she said finally, "I nuver seed ye afore; leastways I ain't no recollection of hit ef I ever did." The old man, who with the old mill had fallen into decrepitude, then came slowly hobbling out, an inquiring look on his kind old face. Tildy turned to him, raising her voice shrilly, for he heard with difficulty and asked: "Nat, have ye ever seed this young man afore?" "No," the old man returned after searching scrutiny. Then Steve said: "Don't you remember an old gray horse that used to come to the mill with a little girl in white pinafore on his back, two bags of corn behind her, and a tousled, brown-haired boy of about twelve walking beside her?" "And the little girl was always on the verge of starvation, and only molasses cakes could rescue her," put in Nancy laughing. "Nancy and Steve," exclaimed the old woman, and then with the intuition of her sex for romance, she further exclaimed: "An' ye hev done got married!" "No," Steve hastened to say; but the old man, more accustomed to his wife's shrill voice, caught her affirmation, and failed to hear Steve's denial. "Well, now," said he, rubbing his hands together, greatly pleased, "Tildy and me allus said ye'd marry some day; ye was jes' suited to one another." Nancy hated herself for flushing so unreasonably again, and Steve, not daring to look towards her, was hurrying to the rescue, when the old woman with a swift, keen glance at both, broke in with: "No, pap, no they hain't," piped shrilly into the old man's ear. His face dropped with evident disappointment, and there was an embarrassed moment for all of them. "Mother Greely," said Nancy gaily, determinedly recovering herself, "have you got any of those molasses cakes you used to give us when we came over?" "Wal now, I think I hev," said the old woman, rising as quickly as her stiffened limbs would let her. Steve looked down at Nancy as Tildy went in, smiled, and said: "Shall we sit on the door-step, as we used to?" Nancy's eyes did not meet his, and she turned her head to hide that provokingly rising colour as she sat down in a matter-of-fact way. When they rode away from the mill, having made the aged couple happy with the renewal of old times, Steve again with eager yearning strained his inner vision for a glimpse into her heart, but she betrayed not the slightest consciousness of the embarrassing episode. As the horses went leisurely back along through the wood, Steve and Nancy talked gently of the two old people with their wondrous mountain combination of barest poverty, dense ignorance, keen intelligence, simple kindliness and gentle dignity,--qualities which the young folks were now prepared to recognize.