The Patriarch ceased his narration and fell to stroking his beard and humming softly. “Well?” cried the Loafer. “Well?” retorted the old man. “Did she ever merry?” The Patriarch shook his head. “Go look at the grave-stun,” he said, “an’ on it you’ll see wrote: ‘Here lies Becky Stump. Her peaceful soul’s at rest!’” CHAPTER VII. _The Tramp’s Romance._ “Was you ever dissypinted in love?” inquired the Chronic Loafer of the Tramp. A light summer shower had driven the traveller to the shelter of the store porch for a few hours, and he was stretched easily along the floor with his back resting against a pillar. In reply to the question he brought the butt of his heavy hickory stick down on the loose boards with such vigor as to raise a small cloud of dust from the cracks, and cried, “Wull, have I!” “Come tell us about it, ole feller,” said the Tinsmith. “Not muchy.” “We ain’t surprised at your hevin’ ben dissypinted,” said the Loafer, “but it’s your persumption catches me. What’s her name?” “I called her Emily Kate,” answered the Tramp, wiping one of his eyes with his sleeve. “She’ll allus be Emily Kate to me, though to other folks she ain’t nothin’.” “A truly remarkable state of affairs,” said the Teacher. “I presume that the young woman must have been a mere chimera, a hallucination.” “Mebbe she was; mebbe she wasn’t,” the traveller replied. “I never knowd her well enough to git acquainted with all her qualities. In fact I’ve allus kept Emily Kate pretty much to meself an’ have never said nothin’ ’bout her to nobody. But youse gentlemens asts so many questions, I s’pose yez might ez well know the hull thing. ’Bout three year ago I was workin’ th’oo this valley toward the Sussykehanner River, an’ one fine day--it was one o’ them days when you feels like settin’ down an’ jest doin’ nothin’--I come th’oo this very town an’ went up the main road ’bout two mile tell I reached Shale Hill. I never knowd why I done it--it must ’a’ ben fate--but I switched off onter the by-road there ’stead o’ stickin’ to the pike. I walked on ’bout a mile an’ didn’t meet no one or see no houses tell I come to a farm wit’ a peach orchard sout’ o’ the barn. “They was a nice grassy place under an apple tree on the other side the road, an’ ez it was one o’ them warm, lazy, summer days I made up me min’ to rest, an’ lay down there. Ye kin laugh at folks who allus talks weather, but I tell ye it does a powerful sight wit’ a man. I know ef that had ’a’ ben a rainy day I’d never had that fairy-core, ez the French calls it, that hit me then an’ come near spoilin’ me life.