“Uncle and Aunt Davis are just as easy with Jane as if they wasn’t perfessors of religion,” sighed Nora Waddell. “And their boys thinks so much of her,” added Mary Thompson. “John can’t go anywhere unless she ties his neck-han’ketcher for him. I’ve knowed him, when Jane was sick, to come and lean over her to get it fixed.” “If she’s to leave them,” said Philip, “I wonder how they’d do without her?” “She’s goin’ to marry Cousin Jimmy Thompson, that I know,” said Mary. “She’s engaged to Dr. Miller in Lancaster,” insisted Nora. “I’ve saw voluntines he’s sent her.” “Dick Hanks thinks he’s goin’ to get her,” laughed Philip. “He told me she’s as good as promised him. And Dick’s a good feller, if he wasn’t such a coward.” “I don’t believe Jane wants anybody,” said Nora Waddell. “She’s light-minded, and likes to enjoy herself.” Dick Hanks stood by Jane and insisted on helping her to move the stirrer. His hair inclosed his head in the shape of a thatch, leaving but narrow eaves of forehead above his eyebrows, though his expression was open and amiable. He looked like one of Bewick’s cuts of an English carter. The Hankses, however, were a rich family, and, in spite of their eccentricities, a power in the county. Old Jimmy Hanks so dreaded the grave that he had a marble vault hewed, watching its progress for years, and getting himself ready to occupy it a few weeks after its completion. Lest he should be buried alive, his will decreed that the vault should be unlocked and the coffin examined at intervals. The sight of a face floating in alcohol and spotted with drops from the metal casket not proving grateful to his heirs, the key was soon conveniently lost. His son Dick, hearty in love and friendship and noble in brawn, so feared the dark that he would not go into an unlighted room. When left by himself at the parting of roads after a night’s frolic, he galloped his horse through brush and mire, and it was told that he had more than once reached home without a whole stitch to his back. But in spite of the powers of darkness, Dick was anxious to take Jane Davis under his protection. The fire and the noisy company kept him from lifting his eyes to the treetops swaying slowly overhead, and the lonesome stars. All through the woods winter-night sounds and sudden twig cracklings could be heard. Dick, however, meant to take Jane Davis home, whether he could persuade one of the Davis boys to go home with him afterward or not. In those days neighborhoods were intensely local. The people knew what historians have not yet learned about the value of isolated bits of human life. These young folks in the sugar-camp knew nothing of the events and complications of the great world, but they all felt more or less interested in the politics of Jane Davis’s entanglements.