And as he walked along his mood was, to say the least, savage, and he cut, with a long switch he had picked up, at some nodding little wind bells that had begun to show their colors along the side of the road.  He was hungry and he was having his supper in detached visions.  Now Rose Mary was handing the Senator a plate of high-piled supper rolls, each with a golden stream of butter cascading down the side, and as her lovely bare arm held them across to the guest probably she was helping Stonie’s plate with her other hand to a spoonful of cream gravy over his nicely browned chicken leg.  On her side of the table Miss Lavinia was pouring the rich cream over her bowl of steaming mush and the materialized aroma from Uncle Tucker’s cup of coffee that Rose Mary had just poured him brought tears to Everett’s eyes.  Then came a flash of Aunt Amandy helping herself under Rose Mary’s urging to a second crisp waffle, and the Senator was preparing to accept his sixth, impelled by the same solicitous smile that had landed the second on the little old lady’s plate.  Again Rose Mary was pouring the Senator’s second cup and stirring in the cream.  If she had lifted the spoon to her lips, as she always did with Uncle Tucker’s and sometimes forgot and did with his, Everett would have—­And at this point he turned the bend and ran smash into the dramatic scene of a romance.

Seated by the side of the road was Louisa Helen Plunkett, and before her stood young Bob Nickols, an agony of helplessness showing in every line of his face and big loose-jointed figure, for Louisa Helen was weeping into a handkerchief and one of her blue muslin sleeves.  And it was not a series of sentimental sobs and sighs or controlled and effective sniffs in which Louisa Helen was indulging, but she was boo-hooing in good earnest with real chokings and gurgles of sobs.  Bob was screwing the toe of his boot into the dust and saying and doing absolutely and desperately nothing.

“Why, Louisa Helen, what is the matter?” demanded Everett as he seated himself beside the wailer and endeavored to bring down the pitch of the sobs by a kindly pat on the heaving shoulder.

“What’s happened, Bob?” he demanded of the silent and dejected lover, who only shook his head as he answered from the depths of confusion.

“I don’t know; she just of a sudden flung down and began to hollow and I ain’t never got her to say.”

“Oh, I want a supper and a veil and a bokay!” came in a perfect howl from the folds of the sleeve.

“I want some supper, too, Louisa Helen,” said Everett quickly, and a smile lifted the corners of his mouth as the situation began to unravel itself to his sympathetic concern.  “I guess I could take the bouquet and veil, too,” he added to himself in an undertone.