“So I supposed,” she quietly answered. It was provoking. Everything she said made him think there was another meaning behind the words; her composed manner, though he knew it to be habitual, more and more disconcerted him. Never did an intentional wooer find his wooing so painful and laborious. After this attempt he addressed himself to Doctor Deane, for even the question of circumventing Sandy Flash now presented itself to his mind as a relief. There he sat, and the conversation progressed in jerks and spirts, between pauses of embarrassing silence. The sun hung on the western hill in a web of clouds; Martha and Miss Betsy rose and prepared the tea-table, and the guest, invited perforce, perforce accepted. Soon after the meal was over, however, he murmured something about cattle, took his hat and left. Two or three horses were hitched before the Unicorn, and he saw some figures through the bar-room window. A bright thought struck him; he crossed the road and entered. “Hallo, Alf! Where from now? Why, you're as fine as a fiddler!” cried Mr. Joel Ferris, who was fast becoming familiar, on the strength of his inheritance. “Over the way,” answered the landlord, with a wink and a jerk of his thumb. Mr. Ferris whistled, and one of the others suggested: “He must stand a treat, on that.” “But, I say!” said the former, “how is it you're coming away so soon in the evening?” “I went very early in the afternoon,” Barton answered, with a mysterious, meaning smile, as much as to say: “It's all right; I know what I'm about.” Then he added aloud,--“Step up, fellows; what'll you have?” Many were the jests and questions to which he was forced to submit, but he knew the value of silence in creating an impression, and allowed them to enjoy their own inferences. It is much easier to start a report, than to counteract it, when once started; but the first, only, was his business. It was late in the evening when he returned home, and the household were in bed. Nevertheless, he did not enter by the back way, in his stockings, but called Giles down from the garret to unlock the front-door, and made as much noise as he pleased on his way to bed. The old man heard it, and chuckled under his coverlet. CHAPTER IX. THE RAISING. Steadily and serenely the Spring advanced. Old people shook their heads and said: “It will be April, this year, that comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion,”--but it was not so. Soft, warm showers and frostless nights repaid the trustfulness of the early-expanding buds, and May came clothed completely in pale green, with a wreath of lilac and hawthorn bloom on her brow. For twenty years no such perfect spring had been known; and for twenty years afterwards the farmers looked back to it as a standard of excellence, whereby to measure the forwardness of their crops.