"That's what you do, Anderson," said Mr. Lamson, as Anderson reached over and took a handful of licorice drops from the jar on the counter. CHAPTER IX The Village Queen The spring of 1903 brought Rosalie back to Tinkletown after her second and last year with Miss Brown in New York City. The sun seemed brighter, the birds sang more blithely, the flowers took on a new fragrance and the village spruced up as if Sunday was the only day in the week. The young men of the town trembled when she passed them by, and not a few of them grew thin and haggard for want of food and sleep, having lost both appetite and repose through a relapse in love. Her smile was the same as of yore, her cheery greetings the same, and yet the village swains stood in awe of this fine young aristocrat for days and days. Gradually it dawned upon them that she was human, after all, despite her New York training, and they slowly resumed the old-time manner of courting, which was with the eyes exclusively. A few of the more venturesome--but not the more ardent--asked her to go walking, driving, or to the church "sociables," and there was a rivalry in town which threatened to upset commerce. There was no theatre in Tinkletown, but they delighted in her descriptions of the gorgeous play-houses in New York. The town hall seemed smaller than ever to them. The younger merchants and their clerks neglected business with charming impartiality, and trade was going to "rack and ruin" until Rosalie declined to marry George Rawlins, the minister's son. He was looked upon as the favoured one; but she refused him in such a decisive manner that all others lost hope and courage. It is on record that the day after George's _congé_ Tinkletown indulged in a complete business somersault. Never before had there been such strict attention to customers; merchants and clerks alike settled down to the inevitable and tried to banish Rosalie's face from the cost tags and trading stamps of their dull, mercantile cloister. Even Tony Brink, the blacksmith's 'prentice, fell into the habits of industry, but with an absent-mindedness that got him kicked through a partition in the smithy when he attempted to shoe the fetlock of Mr. Martin's colt instead of its hoof. The Crow family took on a new dignity. Anderson gave fifty dollars to the Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church, claiming that a foreign education had done so much for his ward; and Mrs. Crow succeeded in holding two big afternoon teas before Rosalie could apply the check rein.