Steve began a mild protest, but Nannie turned to walk into the house, when she caught sight of Madam Hen No. 2 off her nest and stalking around with the same offensive strut as that of No. 1. This was too much for her own nervous system, and she rushed upon the offending hen, and kept up this pace with such vigor that at the end of ten minutes she had run her down, taken her literally in hand, borne her squawking into the barn, jammed her down on the nest, and roofed it with boards, which she nailed on with rocks. This done, she returned to the house in a state of savage quiet (if I may be allowed a contradictory term), feeling herself fiercely secure of at least one sitting. She was not, however, for madam spared no effort till she burst her bonds, brought the rocks down upon the heads of herself and her prospective family, and they all died the death together. "There's some satisfaction in that," said Nannie. "The stupid, nasty, mean old thing went with the eggs!" The third sitting materialized, and a lovelier brood of chicks was never seen. Steve was surprised and even touched as he stood watching Nannie in her delight. There was something really womanly in the way in which the girl coddled the pretty creatures, holding them close to her face and calling them all the sweet, tender little names in which a woman's heart goes out to the infantile and the helpless. Looking and thinking, several things came into Steve's mind, and one evening he essayed to bring about a better understanding betwixt his erratic little wife and himself. But alas! though possessed of an unusually tender heart and of unusually fine intuitions, yet occasionally Steve was a man, pure and simple, and this was one of the occasions. Just as Nannie was sitting down to dinner he said: "Nannie, I've been wondering what is it that makes you act so?" "I don't act!" stormed Nannie, who was ablaze in a minute. "It's you who act! You treat me as if I were a two-year-old child!" Then, in a gust of changed emotion, she took a step nearer to him and cried out: "I don't want to be bad, but"--she turned now toward the door, and as she went out looked backward over her shoulder and added impishly--"I am, and I'm 'fraid I'm going to be." And off she went--off to the barn, and the next moment there was a lonely, yearning child-wife sobbing her heart out on Sarah Maria's neck. Evidently there was a bond between these two, for Nannie was neither hooked nor kicked, and when Sarah Maria behaved peacefully at both ends it was manifest that her heart was touched. X