"but, as I say--"

Mary Bell did not hear him. After a while he was gone, and she was
sitting on the steps, hopeless, dispirited, tired. She sombrely
watched the departing surreys and phaetons. "I could have gone with
them--or with them!" she would think, when there was an empty seat.

The Parmalees went by; two carriage loads. Jim Carr was in the
phaeton with Carrie at his side. All the others were in the surrey.

"I'm keeping 'em where I can have an eye on 'em!" Mrs. Parmalee
called out, pointing to the phaeton.

Everybody waved, and Mary Bell waved back. But when they were gone,
she dropped her head on her arms.

Dusk came; the village was very still. A train thundered by, and
Potter's windmill creaked and splashed,--creaked and splashed. A
cow-bell clanked in the lane, and Mary Bell looked up to see the
Dickeys' cow dawdle by, her nose sniffing idly at the clover, her
downy great bag leaving a trail of foam on the fresh grass. From up
the road came the faint approaching rattle of wheels.

Wheels?

The girl looked toward the sound curiously. Who drove so recklessly?
She noticed a bank of low clouds in the east, and felt a puff of
cool air on her cheek.

"It feels like rain!" she said, watching the wagon as it came near.