John Hunter had gone to Colebyville that morning in the new buggy, rather pleased to be the centre of observation and remark. He quite liked to swagger before these country people whom he chose otherwise to ignore. He was well dressed, his buggy was the admired of all admirers, and he was newly married. Country gossip had some pleasing qualifications. When he had arrived at Colebyville, however, John Hunter had found that country people had little ways of their own for the edification of the vainglorious, and that trim young men in buggies became infinitely more interesting to the scorned when they could be associated with scandal. He soon found that he was the object of much amused discussion and shortly it became evident that they were quite willing that he should know that he was the object of ridicule. Pretending friendship, one of them enlightened him as to the exact circumstances which were amusing them, and then sneaked back to his companions with a verbatim report of his surprised exclamations. John Hunter did not enjoy being the victim of a trap laid by those he had patronized. It had been a humiliating day, and John Hunter always handed his misfortunes along. He poured his disgust over his wife as if she alone were responsible for all he had suffered that day. "What was the row with you about, anyway?" he inquired with evident aversion to her presence. Elizabeth had withered into a quivering semblance of the confident woman who had run to meet him five minutes ago. Her knees shook under her with collapse. She sat down on the edge of the bed and stammered her explanations as if she had been a naughty child caught red-handed in some act of which she was ashamed. "It--oh, John! I only went to him to make up about--about other things. We--we didn't have any fuss exactly. It--it was just the same old thing. I--I begged ma not to make me go home. I told her what he would--I knew he'd whip me, but she would have me go." "Well, he couldn't whip you for nothing," John said, with brutal inquiry. "What'd you fall out with him for? I never heard of such a thing as a girl who was a woman grown that fell out with her father till he whipped her." Exasperated and miserable, John bestowed blame in the only convenient place he found.