“Nothin' to amount to much. Nothin' about comin' back, anyhow. Colton said somethin' about bein' remembered to the young feller's ma, and Carver said, 'Thanks,' and that was all. Alvin said 'twas pretty chilly. They've got it all figgered out at the post-office; you see, Carver was to come back to the meetin' house and pick up his princess, and he never come. She started without him and got run away with. Some of the folks paddlin' home from the festival saw the auto go by and heard the crowd inside singin' and laughin' and hollerin'. Nobody's goin' to sing a night like that unless they've got cargo enough below decks to make 'em forget the wet outside. And Beriah Doane was over to Ostable yesterday and he says it's town talk there that young Parker--the boy the auto crowd was sayin' good-by to at the hotel--had to be helped up to his room. No, I guess likely the Colton girl objected to her feller's gettin' tight and forgettin' her, so he and she had a row and her dad, the emperor, give him his discharge papers. Sounds reasonable; don't you think so, yourself?” I imagined that the surmise was close to the truth. I nodded and turned away. I did not like Carver, I detested him, but somehow I no longer felt triumph at his discomfiture. I wondered if he really cared for the girl he had lost. It was difficult to think of him as really caring for any one except himself, but if I had been in his place and had, through my own foolishness, thrown away the respect and friendship of such a girl. . . . Yes, I was beginning to feel a little of Mother's charity for the young idiot, now that he could no longer insult and patronize me. Captain Jed followed me to the bank door. “Say, Ros,” he said, “changed your mind about sellin' that Lane land yet?” “No,” I answered, impatiently. “There's no use talking about that, Captain Dean.” “All right, all right. Humph! the fellers are gettin' consider'ble fun out of that Lane.” “In what way?” He laughed. “Oh, nothin',” he observed, with a wink, “only. . . . Heard any extry hurrahin' over to your place lately?” “No. Captain, what do you mean?” “I don't mean nothin'. But I shouldn't wonder if the Great Panjandrum and his folks was reminded that that Lane was still open, that's all. Ho! ho! So long, Ros.” I did not catch his meaning at the time. A few days later I discovered it by accident. I had been up to the village and was on my way home by the short cut. As I crossed the field behind Sylvanus Snow's abandoned house, the spot where Miss Colton and I had waited on the porch the night of the thunder shower, I heard the rattle of a cart going down the Lane. There was nothing unusual in this, of itself, but with it I heard the sound of loud voices. One of these voices was so loud that I caught the words: “Now, boys, start her up! Three cheers for the Star Spangled Banner and make 'em loud. Let her go!” The cheers followed, uproarious ones.