guests, who leaned forward with pipes in hand and vacant, admiring eyes
on her still comely features. It was a matter of gossip that she had
refused half the county, and that her reason for marrying William had
been that he wasn't "set," and would be easy to manage. The event had
proved the prophecy, and to all appearance it was a perfectly successful
mating.

Abel was the first to move under her gaze, and rising from his chair by
the fire, he took up his hat, and made his way slowly through the group,
which parted grudgingly, and closed quickly together.

"Take a night to sleep on yo' temper Abel," called Solomon after him,
"and git a good breakfast inside of you befo' you start out to do
anything rash. Well, I must be gittin' along, folks, sad as it seems to
me. It's strange to think, now ain't it--that when Nannie was married
to Tom Middlesex an' livin' six miles over yonder at Piping Tree, I
couldn't have got over that road too fast on my way to her."

"You'd still feel like that, friend, if she were still married to Tom
Middlesex," quavered old Adam. "'Tis the woman we oughtn't to think on
that draws us with a hair."

"Now that's a case in p'int," replied Solomon, nodding after the
vanishing figure of Abel. "All his wits are in his eyes, as you can tell
jest to look at him--an' for sech a little hop-o'-my-thumb female that
don't reach nigh up to his shoulder."

"I can't see any particular good looks in the gal, myself," remarked
Mrs. Bottom, "but then, when it's b'iled down to the p'int, it ain't
her, but his own wishes he's chasin'."