The bees that, regardless of Sunday, gathered sweets from the pale blue aster blooms beside the goldenrods, went back to their hive many times: Miss Nancy's chances for filling her jars with sweet pickled pears steadily lessened, and the soft murmur of voices that came from the goldenrod shaded corner went on and on. "You'll not fail me then, Lucy," the man said at last: "I can't have you worried an hour longer than--" "They--they won't let me, Nathan," said Miss Lucy. "You'd just better go away and forget me! I'm afraid--I'm afraid--" At this moment Dunaway raced past them, making quick time in the direction of Jim Doggett's, but Dock paused in his flight. "She's a comin'!" he panted, jerking his thumb in the direction of the road, "Miss Nancy! I seed her buggy out'n the top o' the pear tree, and she's right at the yard!" Miss Lucy started up in dismay, a chalky whiteness spreading over her face. Mr. Lindsay took one of her trembling hands. "Remember!" he said meaningly. The latch of the yard gate rattled: Miss Lucy tried to pull away her fingers, but his hand tightened its grip, and his other arm went around her. "O Nathan," she gasped, frantic with fear, "go away! go away quick! Ef Nancy was to see me out here with _you_--Don't Nathan!" A moment after, Miss Lucy, blushing furiously, sped through the garden, trying to compose an explanation as to her rumpled hair, the fireless stove, and the unstrung beans, lying wilting on the kitchen table, while a determined man of fifty, with the stride of a boy, and a decidedly youthful glow in his face, hurried toward the home of Jim and Henrietty Doggett. CHAPTER XV "WEEP NO MORE, MY LADY" "God's in His Heaven, All's right with the world." The opportunity for speaking to her father alone, for which Miss Lucy watched all Sunday afternoon after Mr. Doggett's departure, did not present itself until after supper. Then, while Miss Nancy remained in the kitchen for her half-hour's cleaning--an occupation in which she would brook no assistance--Miss Lucy, tremulously resolute, hastened to broach a subject that meant much to her dress-loving soul. "Pa," she murmured humbly, "you remember you helped Sister Isabindy, and the others to git some nice clothes when they married: now, s'pose I was to take a notion to marry, would you do the same by me?" The old man frowned impatiently. "I thought I'd made hit plain to you, Lucy Ann," he reminded her, "that ef you wuz to marry, I'd cut you out o' my will!" "I understood that, Pa," Miss Lucy explained with a look of pleading: "but in case I was to git ready to marry, and would ask you to jest give me a dollar or two to help pay for my dress, you'd say you would, wouldn't you?" Mr. James looked at her as though he had not heard her aright. "What'd I say?" he jerked out, after a moment. "I'd say 'I shan't give you nothin'.' Hain't I been a feedin' you longer'n I done any o' the others?"