threw them on the ground, kicked off his boots, and, plunging wildly
forward, darted headlong over the hill, in the direction of the river.

"Goodness heavens!--the man will be drowned!" said Miss Mary; and then,
with feminine inconsistency, she ran back to the schoolhouse and locked
herself in.

That night, while seated at supper with her hostess, the blacksmith's
wife, it came to Miss Mary to ask, demurely, if her husband ever got
drunk. "Abner," responded Mrs. Stidger, reflectively, "let's see: Abner
hasn't been tight since last 'lection." Miss Mary would have liked to
ask if he preferred lying in the sun on these occasions, and if a cold
bath would have hurt him; but this would have involved an explanation,
which she did not then care to give. So she contented herself with
opening her gray eyes widely at the red-cheeked Mrs. Stidger--a fine
specimen of Southwestern efflorescence--and then dismissed the subject
altogether. The next day she wrote to her dearest friend, in Boston:
"I think I find the intoxicated portion of this community the least
objectionable. I refer, my dear, to the men, of course. I do not know
anything that could make the women tolerable."

In less than a week Miss Mary had forgotten this episode, except that
her afternoon walks took thereafter, almost unconsciously, another
direction. She noticed, however, that every morning a fresh cluster of
azalea blossoms appeared among the flowers on her desk. This was not
strange, as her little flock were aware of her fondness for flowers, and
invariably kept her desk bright with anemones, syringas, and lupines;
but, on questioning them, they one and all professed ignorance of the
azaleas. A few days later, Master Johnny Stidger, whose desk was nearest
to the window, was suddenly taken with spasms of apparently gratuitous