“My Aunt Woodbridge is very sick. If your men make a noise again in front of my uncle's house, she will die. I came to--to ask”--she had to say it--“you to prevent it.” “I will prevent it,” said Perez. Desire dropped an almost imperceptible curtsey, raised the latch of the door and went out. All through the interview, even when she had overheard Elnathan's confidences to Perez, at the door, her cheeks had not betrayed her by a trace of unusual color, but now as she hurried home across the fields, they burned with shame, and she fairly choked to think of the vulgar familiarity to which she had submitted, and the abject attitude she had assumed to this farmer's son. She remembered well enough that childish kiss, and saw in his eyes that he remembered it. This perception had added the last touch to her humiliation. But Perez went out and wandered into the wood-lot and sat down on a fallen tree, and stared a long time into vacancy with glowing eyes. He had dreamed of Desire a thousand times during his long absence from home, but since his return, so vehement had been the pressure of domestic troubles, so rapid the rush of events, that he had not had time to once think of her existence, up to the moment when she had confronted him there in the kitchen, in a beauty at once the same, and so much more rare, and rich and perfect, than that which had ruled his boyish dreams. Presently he went down to the tavern. The crowd of men and boys on the green received him with quite an ovation. Shaking hands right and left with the men, he went on to the tavern, and finding Abner smoking on the bench outside the door, drew him aside and asked him to see that there was no demonstration in front of Woodbridge's that evening. Abner grumbled a little. “O' course I'm sorry for the woman, if she's sick, but they never showed no considerashun fer our feelin's, an I don' see wy we sh'd be so durn tender o' theirn. I shouldn't be naow, arter they'd treated a brother o' mine ez they hev Reub. But ye be cap'n, Perez, an it shel be ez ye say. The boys kin try ther fiddles on Squire Edwards instid.” “No. Not there, Abner,” said Perez, quickly. “Wy not, I sh'd like ter know. His wife ain't sick, be she?” “No, that is I don't know,” said Perez, his face flushing a little with the difficulty of at once thinking of any plausible reason. “You see,” he finally found words to say, “the store is so near Squire Woodbridge's, that the noise might disturb Madam Woodbridge.” “She muss hev dum sharp ears, ef she kin hear much at that distance,” observed Abner, “but it shell be as ye say, Cap'n. I s'pose ye've nothin agin our givin Sheriff Seymour a little mewsick.” “As much as you please, Abner.” CHAPTER THIRTEENTH A PRAISE MEETING