“Nothing common and cheap,” he said, “but the very best you have in the store—­such as they use in the city.”

Suspecting his purpose, she produced at once a turquoise coloured box, from which she extracted an envelope that was ornamented on the flap with a white dove holding a true lover’s knot in his beak.

“This is the very thing you’re lookin’ for,” she observed, in the tone of one who is conscious of being an authority in that sphere to which God has called her, “the latest style in Applegate.”

Picking up the envelope he held it doubtfully toward the light in the doorway.

“Are you sure it isn’t a little—­a little loud?” he inquired wistfully.

“Loud?  Dear me, to think of you callin’ a dove an’ a blue ribbon bow loud!  Ain’t that jest like a man?  They can’t be expected to have taste in sech matters.  No, it ain’t loud!” she replied with more direct condescension.  “It’s the latest thing from Applegate—­the girls are all crazy about it—­jest the little artistic trifle that catches a woman’s eye.”

In the end, under the sting of her rebuke, though but half convinced, he concluded the purchase and went out, bearing the box of ornamented paper under his arm.  An hour later, after the letter was written, misgivings besieged him anew, and he stood holding the envelope at arm’s length, while he frowned dubiously at the emblematic dove on the flap.

“It doesn’t look just right to me,” he said under his breath, “but Mrs. Bottom ought to know, and I reckon she does.”

The letter went, and the next afternoon he followed it in person to Jordan’s Journey.  Gay was coming down the walk when he reached the lawn, and after a moment’s hesitation they stopped to exchange a few remarks about the weather.

“There’s something I want to explain to you, Revercomb,” said Jonathan, wheeling back abruptly after they had parted.  “Molly has become a member of our household, you see; so my relation to her is really that of a cousin.  She’s a staunch little soul—­I’ve a tremendous admiration for her—­but there has never been the slightest sentiment between us, you understand.”

“Yes, I understand,” replied Abel, and fell silent.

There was a certain magnanimity, he recognized, in Gay’s effort to put things right even while he must have preferred in his heart to have them remain in the wrong.  As Molly’s cousin it was hardly probable that he should care to hasten her marriage to a country miller.

“Well, I wanted you to know, that was all,” said Gay in a friendly tone.  “You’ll find Molly in the side-garden, so I wouldn’t trouble to knock if I were you.”