“Jerry is late, to-day—­but it’s so plaguy hot he’s favorin’ his hosses, I guess,” said the rosy-faced landlord, with that peculiar intonation which stamped him at once a genuine Yankee.

“A watched pot never biles,” muttered one of the loungers, who regularly for fifteen years had been at his post, waiting for the stage, which during all that time had brought him neither letter, message, friend, nor foe.

But force of habit is everything, and after the very wise saying recorded above, he resumed his whittling, never again looking up until the loud blast of the driver’s horn was heard on the distant hill-top, where the four weary, jaded horses were now visible.  It was the driver’s usual custom to blow his horn from the moment he appeared on the hill, until with a grand flourish he reined his panting steeds before the door of the inn.  But this time there was one sharp, shrill sound, and then all was still, the omission eliciting several remarks not very complimentary to the weather, which was probably the cause of “Jerry’s” unwonted silence.  Very slowly the vehicle came on, the horses never leaving a walk, and the idler of fifteen years’ standing, who for a time had suspended his whittling, “wondered what was to pay.”

A nearer approach revealed three or four male passengers, all occupied with a young lady, who, on the back seat, was carefully supported by one of her companions.

“A sick gal, I guess.  Wonder if the disease is catchin’?” said the whittler, standing back several paces and looking over the heads of the others, who crowded forward as the stage came up.  The loud greeting of the noisy group was answered by Jerry with a low “sh—­sh,” as he pointed significantly at the slight form which two of the gentlemen were lifting from the coach, asking at the same time if there were a physician near.

“What’s the matter on her?  Hain’t got the cholery, has she,” said the landlord, who, having hallooed to his wife to “fetch up her vittles,” now appeared on the piazza ready to welcome his guests.

At the first mention of cholera, the fifteen years’ man vamosed, retreating across the road, and seating himself on the fence under the shadow of the locust trees.

“Who is she, Jerry?” asked the younger of the set, gazing curiously upon the white, beautiful face of the stranger, who had been laid upon the lounge in the common sitting-room.

“Lord only knows,” said Jerry, wiping the heavy drops of sweat from his good-humored face; “I found her at the hotel in Livony.  She came there in the cars, and said she wanted to go over to ’tother railroad.  She was so weak that I had to lift her into the stage as I would a baby, and she ain’t much heavier.  You orto seen how sweet she smiled when she thanked me, and asked me not to drive very fast, it made her head ache so.  Zounds, I wouldn’t of trotted the horses if I’d never got here.  Jest after we started she fainted, and she’s been kinder talkin’ strange like ever since.  Some of the gentlemen thought I’d better leave her back a piece at Brown’s tavern, but I wanted to fetch her here, where Aunt Betsy could nuss her up, and then I can kinder tend to her myself, you know.”