He gave it up. “The moon makes people insane!” he cried. “If that is true,” she returned, “then you need not be more afraid than I, because 'people' is plural. What were you saying about----” “I _had_ heard them--in my heart. When I heard your voice to-night, I knew that it was you who sang them there--had been singing them for me always.” “So!” she cried, gaily. “All that debate about a pretty speech!” Then, sinking before him in a deep courtesy, “I am beholden to you,” she said. “Do you think that no man ever made a little flattery for me before to-night?” At the edge of the orchard, where they could keep an unseen watch on the garden and the bank of the creek. Judge Briscoe and Mr. Todd were ensconced under an apple-tree, the former still armed with his shot-gun. When the two young people got up from their bench, the two men rose hastily, and then sauntered slowly toward them. When they met, Harkless shook each of them cordially by the hand, without seeming to know it. “We were coming to look for you,” explained the judge. “William was afraid to go home alone; thought some one might take him for Mr. Harkless and shoot him before he got into town. Can you come out with young Willetts in the morning, Harkless,” he went on, “and go with the ladies to see the parade? And Minnie wants you to stay to dinner and go to the show with them in the afternoon.” Harkless seized his hand and shook it fervently, and then laughed heartily, as he accepted the invitation. At the gate, Miss Sherwood extended her hand to him and said politely, and with some flavor of mockery: “Good-night, Mr. Harkless. I do not leave to-morrow. I am very glad to have met you.” “We are going to keep her all summer if we can,” said Minnie, weaving her arm about her friend's waist. “You'll come in the morning?” “Good-night, Miss Sherwood,” he returned, hilariously. “It has been such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for saving my life. It was very good of you indeed. Yes, in the morning. Good-night--good-night.” He shook hands with them all again, including Mr. Todd, who was going with him. He laughed most of the way home, and Mr. Todd walked at his side in amazement. The Herald Building was a decrepit frame structure on Main Street; it had once been a small warehouse and was now sadly in need of paint. Closely adjoining it, in a large, blank-looking yard, stood a low brick cottage, over which the second story of the warehouse leaned in an effect of tipsy affection that had reminded Harkless, when he first saw it, of an old Sunday-school book wood-cut of an inebriated parent under convoy of a devoted child. The title to these two buildings and the blank yard had been included in the purchase of the “Herald”; and the cottage was Harkless's home.