For a few days I took a vacation.  I wandered about the “back lots,” down to the mill-dam, up and down the lonely, winding street where all the prim houses—­and they were very far apart—­wore a desolate, closed look, as though the inhabitants were away, or dead.  I grew accustomed to my environments; the little bedroom began to seem like home to me.  On my way to the post-office some one passed me on the sandy, yellow patch, a man clothed after the manner of civilization, whose garments, cut by no country tailor, were not covered by overalls.  I knew it must be “the other orther.”  None of the males in Wauchittic appeared in public, except on Sunday, save in overalls.  It would have been, I think, considered unseemly, if not indecent.

The man was young, with a worn, delicate face, marked by ill-health, and though I had studiously avoided the yard near “milkin’ time,” in spite of Mrs. Hopper’s transparent insistance each evening on my going out to see the brindled heifer, I think my indifferent glance was assumed, for though John Longworth, so far as I knew, had not his name inscribed on the records of fame, and was probably a penny-a-liner on a third-rate newspaper, I had the instinct of fellow-craft, that is, alas! strongest in the unknown and ardent young writer.  He walked feebly, and his brilliant eyes were haggard and circled, as though by long illness.  I saw him drive by nearly every afternoon, accompanied by his nurse, a good-humored young fellow, who helped him tenderly into the carriage, and drove, while he lay back with the irritated expression that the sense of enforced idleness and invalidism gives a man in the heyday of youth.  Mrs. Hopper, who was loquacious to a degree, told me long stories of his parents’ wealth, of the luxuries brought down with him, and of the beautiful pieces of furniture he had had sent down for his room, for his physician had recommended him to an absolutely quiet place for the entire summer.  She burned with an irrepressible desire to have me make the acquaintance of this son of wealth and literature, either from the feminine proclivity for match-making, or because, possibly, she thought, having an intense reverence for writers, that our conversation would be of an edifying and uncommon character.  I fear she was disappointed, for on the occasion of our first meeting,—­I believe Mr. Longworth came to see Mrs. Hopper on some trifling business, and I happened to be writing on the front porch,—­our remarks were certainly of the most commonplace type, and I saw a shade of disappointment steal across her face, as she stood by triumphantly, having accomplished her wish to “get us acquainted.”