“Susie Barringer,” said a low, husky voice which she could scarcely recognize as Golyer’s, “I’ve come to ask pardon—­not for nothing I’ve done, for I never did and never could do you wrong—­but for what I thought for a while arter you left me this morning.  It’s all over now, but I tell you the Bad Man had his claws into my heart for a spell.  Now it’s all over, and I wish you well.  I wish your husband well.  If ever you git into any trouble where I can help, send for me:  it’s my right.  It’s the last favor I ask of you.”

Susceptible Susie cried a little again.  Allen, watching her with his ambushed eyes, said, “Don’t take it to heart, Tudie.  Perhaps there is better days in store for me yet.”

This did not appear to comfort Miss Barringer in the least.  She was greatly grieved when she thought she had broken a young man’s heart:  she was still more dismal at the slightest intimation that she had not.  If any explanation of this paradox is required, I would observe, quoting a phrase much in vogue among the witty writers of the present age, that Miss Susie Barringer was “a very female woman.”

So pretty Susan’s rising sob subsided into a coquettish pout by the time her mother came in with the foaming pitcher of subacidulous nectar, and plied young Golyer with brimming beakers of it with all the beneficent delight of a Lady Bountiful.

“There, Mizzes Barringer! there’s about as much as I can tote.  Temperance in all things.”

“Very well, then, you work less and play more.  We never get a sight of you lately.  Come in neighborly and play checkers with Tudie.”

It was the darling wish of Mother Barringer’s heart to see her daughter married and settled with “a stiddy young man that you knowed all about, and his folks before him.”  She had observed with great disquietude the brilliant avatar of Mr. Bertie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter in the bright-plumaged captive she had brought to Chaney Creek, the spoil of her maiden snare.  “I don’t more’n half like that little feller.” (It is a Western habit to call a well-dressed man a “little feller.”  The epithet would light on Hercules Farnese if he should go to Illinois dressed as a Cocodes.) “No honest folks wears beard onto their upper lips.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t a gamboller.”

Allen Golyer, apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame Barringer was vicariously setting for him, walked away with his spade on his shoulder, and the good woman went systematically to work in making Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart’s idol.

Day after day wore on, and, to Dame Barringer’s delight and Susie’s dismay, Mr. Leon did not come.

“He is such a businessman,” thought trusting Susan, “he can’t get away from Keokuk.  But he’ll be sure to write.”  So Susie put on her sun-bonnet and hurried up to the post-office:  “Any letters for me, Mr. Whaler?” The artful and indefinite plural was not disguise enough for Miss Susie, so she added, “I was expecting a letter from my aunt.”