"Well, Rache, how are you? It would cure fever and ague to see you"; and then turning to Lockwood he said: "Hello, George! you out here! I wouldn't 'ave thought there was any other fellow fool enough to ride five miles and back to get a look at Rachel but me." And at that he laughed, not a laugh that had any derision in it, or any defiance, only the outbreaking of animal spirits that were unchecked by foreboding or care. "I say, George," he went on, "let's go out and fight a duel and have it over. There's no chance for any of us here till Rachel's beaux are thinned out a little. If I should get you killed off and out of the way, I suppose I should have to take Mr. Magill next." "No, Tom, it's not with me you'd foight, me boy. I've sane too many handsome girls to fight over them, though I have never sane such transcindent----" "Ah, hush now, Mr. Magill," entreated Rachel. "Faymale beauty's always adorned by modesty, Miss Albaugh. I'll only add, that whoever Miss Rachel stoops to marry"--and Magill laughed a slow, complacent laugh as he put an emphasis on stoops--"I'll be a thorn in his soide, d'yeh mark that; fer to the day of me death, I'll be her most devoted admoirer"; and he made a half-bow at the close of his speech, with a quick recovery, which expressed his sense of the formidable character of his own personal charms. But if Magill was a connoisseur of beauty he was also a politician too prudent to slight any one. He was soon after this paying the closest heed to Mely McCord's very spontaneous talk. He had selected Mely in order that he might not get a reputation for being "stuck up." "Tom Grayson a'n't the leas' bit afeerd uh George Lockwood nur nobody else," said Mely rather confidentially to Magill, who stood with hands crossed under the tail of his blue-gray coat. "He all-ays wuz that away; a kind'v a high-headed, don't-keer sort uv a feller. He'd better luck out, though. Rache's one uh them skittish kind uh critters that don't stan' 'thout hitchin', an' weth a halter knot at that. Tom Grayson's not the fust feller that's felt shore she wuz his'n an' then found out kind uh suddently't 'e wuzn't so almighty shore _arter_ all. But, lawsee gracious! Tom Grayson a'n't afeerd uv nothin', nohow. When the master wuz a-lickin' him wunst, at school, an' gin 'im three cuts, an' then says, says he, 'You may go now,' Tom, he jes lucks at 'im an' says uz peart 's ever you see, says he, 'Gimme another to make it even numbers.'" "An' how did the master fale about that?" asked Magill, who had been a schoolmaster himself.