But the stranger seemed embarrassed and slightly ill at ease, and glanced doubtfully at Jake Baintree, who drained the last drop in his glass. As he held it, empty, still leaning forward, he gazed propitiatingly at her, as she sat shaking with her silent chuckle. “Ye’re funnin’, ain’t ye, Mis’ Strobe?” “Ye want me ter tell the truth, then, Jake? Waal, it’s a mighty tough strain, but I’ll try.” Baintree had risen; he stood swinging his hat in his hand, and laughing, with an effort at geniality. “Naw, Mis’ Strobe; we-uns don’t want ye an’ the gals ter say nuthin’,—that’ll be ez big a favior ter we-uns ez this hyar doctor-man done you-uns.” “We-uns ain’t a-goin’ ter tell nuthin’,” said Marcella, taking the initiative once more. “Naw, we ain’t,” echoed Isabel. “We ain’t likely ter resk ennythin’ we ain’t used ter, like tellin’ the truth,” said Mrs. Strobe waggishly. Baintree rather sheepishly continued to swing his hat; then, as he glanced toward the door, still half ajar, “It’s day!” he said. The puncheon floor of the uninclosed passage without showed in a timorous, colorless medium, too neutral to express the idea of light, too null for darkness. The old dog passed by, distinctly visible, stretching his limbs and yawning, as he looked casually into the room; then went off, wagging his tail slightly, as if pleased in the main to be reminded of his friends within. As the two men came out together, slowly, followed by the family, they paused to observe the traces of the storm, the dripping, moisture-laden aspect of tree and vine and wall, the dank, heavy air, the pallid ranks of the corn, here and there beaten down to the ground. A bird’s-nest, long ago empty, the sport of the winds, was lying upon the porch. Marcella picked up the frail and fibrous thing, suggestive of fleeting song, and transitory love, and lapsing summer. The young stranger had fixed a speculative gaze upon her, as she leaned against the vine-draped post, her hair dry again and freshly curling, the dull fringes of her red shawl against the warm whiteness of her neck, her long lashes pensively veiling her downcast eyes. He mechanically threw his waterproof coat over one arm, as he stood, and with the other hand he meditatively turned the end of his long yellow mustache, unheeding Jake Baintree, who was remarking, “I’ll be bound, Mis’ Strobe, thar’s a heap o’ timber down in the woods.” The mountaineer glanced away at the opaque densities of the mists that filled the valleys, and rose to the mountain-tops, and hung about the little cabin, and had a drearier pallor than the gray sky, where, indeed, once or twice a glittering point betokened a fading star in the rifts of the clouds. Then the two men went down the steps and through the gate, and they and their horses were lost to sight in the vapors before they reached the turn-row.