testament which had always lain on Miss Lavinia’s table into his inside breast pocket, and his face was serious almost to the point of exhaustion.  The time he had spent in Miss Lavinia’s room little Miss Amanda had busily occupied in packing the generous “snack,” which Uncle Tucker hovered over and saw bestowed to his entire satisfaction with the traps Everett had strapped up in his room.  Stonie’s large eyes grew more and more wistful, and after he and Uncle Tucker retired with their good-byes all said he whispered to Rose Mary that he wanted to say just one more thing to Mr. Mark.

Tenderly Everett bent over the cot until the blush rosebud that Miss Amanda had shyly pinned in his buttonhole as her good-by before she had retired, brushed the little fellow’s cheek as he ran his arm under the sturdy little nightgowned shoulders and drew him as close as he dared.

“Say,” whispered Stonie in his ear, “if you see a man that would buy Sniffer’s other two spotted pups I would sell ’em to him.  I want to get them teeth for Aunt Viney.  I could get ’em to him in a box.”

“How much do you want for them?” asked Everett with a little gulp in his voice as his heart beat against the arm of the young provider assuming his obligations so very early in life.

“A dollar a-piece, I guess, or maybe ten,” answered Stonie vaguely.

“I’ll sell them right away at your price,” answered Everett.  “I’ll see that Mr. Crabtree has them packed and shipped.”  He paused for a moment.  He would have given worlds to have taken the two little dogs with him and have left the money with Stonie—­but he didn’t dare.

“And,” murmured Stonie drowsily, “don’t forget that good man for Rose Mamie if you see him—­and—­and—­” but suddenly he had drifted off into the depths, thus abandoning himself to the crush of a hug Everett had been hungry to give him.

And out in the starlit dusk he found Rose Mary sitting on the steps, freed at last, with her responsibilities all asleep—­and before him there lay just this one—­good-by.

Silently he seated himself beside her and as silently lit his cigar and began to puff the rings out into the air.  In the perfect flood of perfume that poured around and over them and came in great gusts from the garden he detected a new tone, wild and woodsy, sweet with a curious tang and haunting in its alien and insistent note in the rhapsody of odors.

“There’s something new in bloom in your garden, Lady of the Rose?” he asked questioningly.

“Yes, it’s the roses on the hedges coming out; don’t they smell briary and—­good?  Just this last night you will be able to carry away with you a whiff of real sweetbriar.  To-morrow the whole town will be in bloom.  It is now I think if we could only see it.”  Rose Mary had gained her composure and the poignant wistfulness in her voice was but a part of the motif of the briar roses in the valley dusk.

“I’ll see it all right to-morrow and often.  Sweetbriar—­it’s going to blind me so that I won’t be able to make my way along Broadway.  Everything hereafter will be located up and down Providence Road for me.”  Everett’s voice held to a tone of quiet lightness and he bravely puffed his rings of smoke out on the breezes.