The Miller Of Old Church

head, while his handsome though fleshy figure inclined slightly forward in the saddle after a foreign fashion. Seen close at hand his face, which was im

; the brow was a trifle too heavy, the jaw a trifle too prominent, the lips under the short dark moustache were a trifle too full. Yet in spite of this coarseness of finish, his face was well coloured, at

tterflies drifted in the wind like blown yellow rose leaves. On the right the thin corn shocks looked as if they were sculptured in bronze, and amid them there appeared presently the bent figure of a harvester, outlined in dull blue against a sky of burnt orange. From the low grounds beside the river a mist floated up, clinging in fleecy shreds to the s

elf that he'd be damned if the game was worth half what the candle was likely to cost him. Having arrived, without notable misadventure, at th

himself and his heirs forever in this god-forsaken land's end, and what in the deuce have mother and Aunt Kesiah done with themselves down here for the last twenty years? Two thousand acres? Damn it! I'd rather have six feet on the good English soil! Came to get rid of

ich marked the almost obliterated path over the fields. Her dress was the ordinary calico one, of some dull purplish shade, worn by the wives and daughters of the neighbouring farmers; and on her bare white arm, with its upturned sleeve, she carried a small split basket half filled with persimmons. She was of an almost pure Saxon type-tall, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed, with a skin the colour of new milk, and soft ashen hair parted smoothly over her e

f black circling around her resolved themselves into a bodyguard of little negroes,

k into her face with a smile, "and do you take your collect

answered gently, with an utter absence of humour. "I can't take anybody who is at

home ne

's a mile farther on, b

ler, Mr. Revercomb-that fine loo

am Blossom Reverc

It's a pre

est quiver of her full white lids, which appeared to weigh h

ruggle with herself, "grandma bein' a great Scripture reader,

Miss Keren-happuch,

itated, ponde

uch is an ugly name, and I don't like it-though grandma says we oughtn't to think any of the Bible names ugly, not even Gog. She is quite an a

name that would sound

-happ

d to his. The serenity of her look added, he thought, to her resemblance to some pagan goddess-not to Artemis nor to Aphrodite, b

light on her classic head and her milky skin, he found a delicious piquancy in the remark. Had she gossiped, had she even laughed, the effect would hav

m the six little negroes walked primly in single file, Mary Jo in the lead and a chocolate-coloured atom of two toddling at the tail of the procession. From

e added in a more intim

Journey, as I s

he drew slightly away from him. "Mary Jo, did y

le nobody caze dar a

re not to bring him wit

hipping she gave him

t from Tobias. "I ain't-a-

hut de res'er us," replied Mary Jo, with fine philo

-a-whuppin'!" sang Tobia

ession of piccaninnies. "What I can't understand is why the people about here-those I

her right to her left arm, and this simple movement had the eff

n, I reckon," she answered, "my fol

nderstand. I've been away since I was eight ye

e a flame driven by the wind. Around them the red-topped orchard grass faded to pale rose in the twilight, and beyond the crumbling rail fence miles of feathery broomsedge swept to the pines that stood straight and black against the western horizon. Impressions of the hour and the scene, of colour and sound, were blended in the allurement which Nature proffered him, for her own ends, through the woman beside him. Not Blossom Revercomb, but the great Moth

ted and that old Mrs. Jordan-'ole Miss' they called her-still comes back out of her grave to rebuke the ha'nt of Mr. Jonathan. There is a path leading from the back porch to the poplar spring where none of them will go for water after nightfall. Uncle Abednego swears that he met his old master there one night when he went down to fill a bucket and that a woman was with him. It all comes, I reckon, of Mr. Jonathan having been found dead at the spring, a

Who were these dead and gone Jordans whose benefic

ch stories," he replied after a minute. "S

ver pass the spring, if I can help it, after the sun

I suppose, lies in the gen

to say that the mercy of God would have to exceed his if He was ever going to redeem him. I remember hearing him tell grandma when I was a child that there were a few particulars in which he couldn't answer with certainty for God, and

et back again to her left arm; and perceiving his adva

am glad I have this from you

orchard grass had gone to his head and coloured his vision. There was a thrill in feeling her large,

friends-good friends, from the f

e him a whippin'. I hope you don't mind my havin' gathered these persimmons on your land," she concluded, with an honesty whic

at, Miss Keren-happuch,

shyly, lifting her scant calico skirt

ly while he turned back into the bridle path whi