“Look at her git over the ground,” said David, turning to watch her while John got into the buggy.  “Ain’t that a gait?”

“She is a charming girl,” said John as old Jinny started off.

“She’s the one I told you about that run off with my hoss,” remarked David, “an’ I alwus look after him fer her in the winter.”

“Yes, I know,” said John.  “She was laughing about it to-day, and saying that you and she were great friends.”

“She was, was she?” said David, highly pleased.  “Yes, sir, that’s the girl, an’, scat my ——! if I was thirty years younger she c’d run off with me jest as easy—­an’ I dunno but what she could anyway,” he added.

“Charming girl,” repeated John rather thoughtfully.

“Wa’al,” said David, “I don’t know as much about girls as I do about some things; my experience hain’t laid much in that line, but I wouldn’t like to take a contract to match her on any limit.  I guess,” he added softly, “that the consideration in that deal ’d have to be ’love an’ affection.’  Git up, old lady,” he exclaimed, and drew the whip along old Jinny’s back like a caress.  The mare quickened her pace, and in a few minutes they drove into the barn.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

“Where you ben?” asked Mrs. Bixbee of her brother as the three sat at the one o’clock dinner.  “I see you drivin’ off somewheres.”

“Ben up the Lake Road to ’Lizer Howe’s,” replied David.  “He’s got a hoss ‘t I’ve some notion o’ buyin’.”

“Ain’t the’ week-days enough,” she asked, “to do your horse-tradin’ in ‘ithout breakin’ the Sabbath?”

David threw back his head and lowered a stalk of the last asparagus of the year into his mouth.

“Some o’ the best deals I ever made,” he said, “was made on a Sunday.  Hain’t you never heard the sayin’, ’The better the day, the better the deal’?”

“Wa’al,” declared Mrs. Bixbee, “the’ can’t be no blessin’ on money that’s made in that way, an’ you’d be better off without it.”

“I dunno,” remarked her brother, “but Deakin Perkins might ask a blessin’ on a hoss trade, but I never heard of it’s bein’ done, an’ I don’t know jest how the deakin ‘d put it; it’d be two fer the deakin an’ one fer the other feller, though, somehow, you c’n bet.”

“Humph!” she ejaculated.  “I guess nobody ever did; an’ I sh’d think you had money enough an’ horses enough an’ time enough to keep out o’ that bus’nis on Sunday, anyhow.”

“Wa’al, wa’al,” said David, “mebbe I’ll swear off before long, an’ anyway the’ wa’n’t no blessin’ needed on this trade, fer if you’ll ask ‘Lizer he’ll tell ye the’ wa’n’t none made.  ’Lizer ‘s o’ your way o’ thinkin’ on the subjict.”

“That’s to his credit, anyway,” she asserted.

“Jes’ so,” observed her brother; “I’ve gen’ally noticed that folks who was of your way o’ thinkin’ never made no mistakes, an’ ’Lizer ’s a very consistent believer;” whereupon he laughed in a way to arouse both Mrs. Bixbee’s curiosity and suspicion.