“That sounds powerful cur’ous, Tubal,” she said gravely, and his heart sank in disappointment with the words and tone. He had expected Jane Ann Sims to flout the matter aside loftily, and indignantly decline to consider aught that might reflect on her much-admired guest. It was he himself who began to feel that it was of slight moment and hardly worth detailing; the sheriff had barely listened to it, without lifting an eyelash of tired and drowsy eyes. He was sorry he had told Jane Ann. What a pother women are wont to stir up over a trifle! “Why ain’t you-uns never spoke of it afore?” she demanded. “Kase I ’lowed ’twould set you-uns agin him,” said the specious Tubal tentatively. Jane Ann sniffed contemptuously. “Waal, I ain’t been ’quainted with no men so powerful puffeck in all thar ways ez I kin be sot agin a youngster, what eats a hearty supper, fur talkin’ in his sleep. I’d be a powerful admirer of the ‘sterner sex,’ ez Pa’son Greenought calls ’em, ef I knowed no wuss of ’em ’n that.” “Wha--wha--what ye goin’ ter do ’bout’n it, Jane Ann?” sputtered Tubal Cain, seeing her ponderously rising, determination on her strong features. “I be goin’ ter ax him what he means by it, that’s what,” said Jane Ann. And before Tubal Cain could protest, she was leaning out of the window and wheezily calling to the young people slowly strolling along the slope before the door. “Kem in, chil’n. I want ter ax John Leonard a kestion.” She met him at the entrance of the passage, the tallow dip in her hand, glowing with a divergent aureola of white rays against the dusky brown shadows and green leaves of the vines opposite. He paused, expectant, while Euphemia, in her green dress, stood on the sill amongst the swaying vines, hardly distinguishable from them save for her fair ethereal face, looking in as if from elf-land, so subtly sweet was its reminiscent expression. But he was intent of attitude, with a question in his waiting eyes; not dallying mentally with the thoughts he had had in contemplation, but altogether receptive to a new theme. His face changed subtly as Jane Ann Sims, watching him narrowly, repeated the words of his somnolent speech. “What air ye talkin’ ’bout, John Leonard, whenst ye say them words agin an’ agin an’ agin, night arter night?” she asked him inquisitively. He did not hesitate. Still, he had a strange look on his face, as if summoned many and many a mile thence. “I dream that I am dead, sometimes, and others need me back again, and I cannot go. I can do nothing. I often dream that I am dead.”