"There's better nor him to be had for the asking now."

They had walked on a few moments in aggrieved silence, and the
Chinaman might have imagined some misfortune had just befallen
them. But Mamie's teeth shone again between her parted lips. "La,
pa! it ain't that! He cares everything for me, and I do for him;
and if ma hadn't got new ideas--" She stopped suddenly.

"What new ideas?" queried her father, anxiously.

"Oh, nothing! I wish, pa, you'd put on your other boots!
Everybody can see these are made for the farrows. And you ain't a
market gardener any more."

"What am I, then?" asked Mulrady, with a half-pleased, half-uneasy
laugh.

"You're a capitalist, I say; but ma says a landed proprietor."
Nevertheless, the landed proprietor, when he reached the boulder on
the Red Dog highway, sat down in somewhat moody contemplation, with
his head bowed over the broad cowhide brogues, that seemed to have
already gathered enough of the soil to indicate his right to that
title. Mamie, who had recovered her spirits, but had not lost her
preoccupation, wandered off by herself in the meadow, or ascended
the hillside, as her occasional impatience at the delay of the
coach, or the following of some ambitious fancy, alternately
prompted her. She was so far away at one time that the stage-
coach, which finally drew up before Mulrady, was obliged to wait
for her.