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Openings in the Old Trail by Bret Harte
page 7 of 220 (03%)
me keep you any longer." She drew back from the fence as she spoke, and
waved him a pretty farewell. Leonidas, half sorry, half relieved, darted
away.

He ran to the post-office, which he never had done before. Loyally he
never looked at her letter, nor, indeed, at his own again, swinging
the hand that held them far from his side. He entered the post-office
directly, going at once to the letter-box and depositing the precious
missive with the others. The post-office was also the "country store,"
and Leonidas was in the habit of still further protracting his errands
there by lingering in that stimulating atmosphere of sugar, cheese, and
coffee. But to-day his stay was brief, so transitory that the postmaster
himself inferred audibly that "old man Boone must have been tanning Lee
with a hickory switch." But the simple reason was that Leonidas wished
to go back to the stockade fence and the fair stranger, if haply she
was still there. His heart sank as, breathless with unwonted haste, he
reached the clearing and the empty buckeye shade. He walked slowly and
with sad diffidence by the deserted stockade fence. But presently his
quick eye discerned a glint of white among the laurels near the house.
It was SHE, walking with apparent indifference away from him towards the
corner of the clearing and the road. But this he knew would bring her
to the end of the stockade fence, where he must pass--and it did. She
turned to him with a bright smile of affected surprise. "Why, you're as
swift-footed as Mercury!"

Leonidas understood her perfectly. Mercury was the other name for
quicksilver--and that was lively, you bet! He had often spilt some on
the floor to see it move. She must be awfully cute to have noticed it
too--cuter than his sisters. He was quite breathless with pleasure.

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