All this was so perfectly true of the prosperous burghers that they
could not for a moment reply. But Briggs had recourse to what he
believed to be a retaliatory taunt.

"I heard you've been askin' Widow Wade to come to your dance," he said,
with a wink at the others. "Of course she said 'Yes.'"

"Of course she did," returned Brooks coolly. "I've just got her note."

"What?" ejaculated the three men together. "Mrs. Wade comin'?"

"Certainly! Why shouldn't she? And it would do YOU good to come too,
and shake the limp dampness out o' you," returned Brooks, as he quietly
remounted his horse and cantered away.

"Darned ef I don't think he's got his eye on the widder," said Johnson
faintly.

"Or the quarter section," added Briggs gloomily.

For all that, the eventful evening came, with many lights in the
staring, undraped windows of the hotel, coldly bright bunting on the
still damp walls of the long dining-room, and a gentle downpour from the
hidden skies above. A close carryall was especially selected to bring
Mrs. Wade and her housekeeper. The widow arrived, looking a little
slimmer than usual in her closely buttoned black dress, white collar and
cuffs, very glistening in eye and in hair,--whose glossy black ringlets
were perhaps more elaborately arranged than was her custom,--and with
a faint coming and going of color, due perhaps to her agitation at this
tentative reentering into worldly life, which was nevertheless quite