"Here's one," I replied, and had lighted the pipe when he said: "Saw her to-day, Bill--saw her riding along the road with Dan Stuart. She didn't even look over in the field toward me, but he waved his hand, and I saw more hatred than friendship in it. Blame it all, Bill, I'm not going to follow a plow through the dirt all the time. I can do something better, and after this crop's laid by I'm going to do it. I don't think that she wants to marry a farmer." "What does Stuart do?" I asked. "How can he afford to be riding about when other men are at work?" "Oh, I guess he's pretty well fixed. He's got a lot of negroes working for him and he raises a good deal of tobacco. No, sir, she didn't even look toward me." "But haven't you passed her house when you were almost afraid to look toward the porch when you knew that she was standing there?" "Of course I have!" he cried. "Yes, sir, I've done that many a time--just pretended that I had business everywhere else but on that porch. Ain't it strange how love does take hold of a fellow? It gets into his heart and his heart shoots it to the very ends of his fingers; it gets into his eyes, and he can't see anything but love, love everywhere. It may catch you one of these days, Bill, and when it does, you'll know just how I feel." I looked at this strong and honest man, this man idolizing an image that he had enshrined in his soul, and I thought to tell him that, with my forehead touching the ground, I had worshiped his sister, but no, it was too delicate a confidence--I would keep it to myself. We were astir in the dawn the next day, ate breakfast by the light of a lamp, but Guinea was not at the table, and I loitered there after the others were gone out, hoping to see her, but she did not come, and then I remembered that Mrs. Jucklin was also absent, and that the services of the meal had been performed by a negro woman. When I returned at evening, with the droning of the children's voices echoing in my ears, it seemed to me that I had been gone an age. I came again by the spring, but Guinea was not there, but I heard her singing as I drew near to the house. She was in the passage, gleefully dancing, with a broom for a partner. When she saw me she threw down the broom and ran away, laughing; but she came back when she found that I had really discovered her. "You must think that I am the silliest creature in the world," she said, "and I don't know that I can dispute you. Millie Lundsford has just gone home. She and I have been going through with our old-time play, when, with window curtains wound about us to represent long dresses, and with brooms to personate the brave knights who had rescued us from the merciless Turks, we danced in the castle. And I was just taking a turn with a duke when you came. What a knight you would have been." "And what an inspiration I should have had to drive me onward and to set my soul aflame with ambition," I replied, looking into her eyes.