He looked anxiously up from his bent posture, carrying the bag well up on his shoulders, at the quickly disappearing figure of the young mountaineer. He did not doubt that Ormsby knew that Euphemia’s domestic errands would probably bring her to the mill at this hour, and the bearing home of the bag of “seconds” was his precious dévoir most ruthlessly usurped. “I only wish, my friend,” thought the juggler, “that you had the heavy thing now with all its tender associations.” He glanced with some solicitude at the delicate lovely face of the girl. It was placidity itself. He had begun to be able to read it. There was an implication of exactions in its soft firmness. She would make no concessions. She would assume no blame not justly and fairly to be laid at her door. She would not rend her heart with those tender lies of false self-accusation common to loving women who find it less bitter to censure themselves than those they love, and sometimes indeed more politic. She would not bewail herself that she had not lingered, that Ormsby, who came daily to examine his fish-traps, might have had the opportunity of a long talk with her which he coveted, and the precious privilege of going home like a mule with a flour-bag on his back. It was his own fault that he was too late. She could not heft the bag. If he were angry he was a fool. On every principle it is a bad thing to be a fool. If God Almighty has not seen fit to make a man a fool, it is an ill turn for a man to make one of himself.