“Hit don’t need to be that,” expounded Meliss’. “The lawyer done tolt me, if a man done lef’ his wife fer two year ‘thouten no support, she could git a _di_vorce from him. Well, ye lef’ me two year ago—ye jest been a-hintin’ at something of yore goin’s on fer two year. Live with ye?—Not if ye was the last man on airth! I’m done—I’m a-goin’ to be free.” “You’ve different ideas from what I had,” said David Joslin, still quietly. “I only thought it wasn’t right for us to live together. I wasn’t thinking of shirking any duty, or breaking any promise, least of all my marriage promise. I was going to pay you all I owed—all I could in every way.” “Ye kain’t pay me nothin’ an’ nohow!” stormed his wife. “I don’t need ye noways on airth!” “I’ve got mighty little in the world,” went on Joslin whitely after a time. “I’ll deed you the farm here. I never asked you to do what you’ve done—divorce is a thing unknown in our family or in these hills. But one thing’s sure—not for any reason—not even if the first reason was taken away—could I go on living with you now.” Trembling in her rage at this, the first actual slight he had put upon her, his wife rose and half ran from the room, deeds, speech and even tears denied her. Joslin made no motion to restrain her, nor did the old dame, chuckling over her pipe, even follow her with her eyes. “It’s done, Granny,” said Joslin bitterly after a time. “She can do what she likes about marrying again—I’ll not raise a hand to help her or stop her. What I have is hers, all of it, and that’s all I can do. As for me, I’ve not got a dollar, and I never will have while I live, I suppose.” “Thar!” exulted the old woman. “I fotched it! I knowed it—I knowed thar was a other womern—but _two_! Tell me all about it, Davy. Furriners, huh? Well, I must say, Davy, that’s more _like_—that’s more like ye had some sort of a _man_-sperrit left to ye!” Her shrill laughter now filled the room, and swayed her gnarled form as she rocked to and fro, her pipe involuntarily falling from her mouth in her merriment “Tell me about ‘em.” “One was a married woman,” said David Joslin, speaking freely before his grandmother as he could not have done before his wife. “I didn’t know how fine and steady and sweet a woman could be till I saw her. I never heard her say a word above her voice. She was fine, always. I reckon she gave me my start—she showed what there was to hope and work for in the world. And she was beautiful, too—in a way I can’t well describe. She was so quiet, so still, folks never would think she was much, maybe not even beautiful. She’s one worth more than the world’s estimate. There are such—the finest of all in all the world, in all its days. She’s married.”