She had turned back to the old hound, and was bending over to place his bowl of bread and milk on the hearth.  A log fire, in which a few pine branches stood out illuminated like boughs of flame, filled the big stone fireplace, which was crudely whitewashed to resemble the low walls of the room.  A kettle hung on an iron crane before the blaze, and the singing of the water made a cheerful noise amid a silence which struck Gay suddenly as hostile.  When the girl raised her head he saw that her face had grown hard and cold, and that the expression of her eyes had changed to one of indignant surprise.  The charming coquetry had fled from her look, yet her evident aversion piqued him into a half smiling, half serious interest.  He wondered if she would marry that fine looking rustic, the miller, and if the riotous Gay blood in her veins would flow placidly in her mother’s class?  Had she, too, inherited, if not the name, yet the weaknesses of an older race?  Was she, like himself, cursed with swift fancies and swifter disillusionments?  How frail she was, and how brilliant!  How innocent and how bitter!

He turned away, ostensibly to examine a print on the wall, and while his back was toward her, he felt that her gaze stabbed him like the thrust of a knife.  Wheeling quickly about, he met her look, but to his amazement, she continued to stare back at him with the expression of indignant surprise still in her face.  How she hated him and, by Jove, how she could hate!  She reminded him of a little wild brown animal as she stood there with her teeth showing between her parted red lips and her eyes flashing defiance.  The next minute he found himself asking if she could ever grow gentle—­could ever soften enough to allow herself to be stroked?  He remembered Solomon Hatch’s remark that “she was onmerciful to an entire sex,” and in spite of his effort at composure, a laugh sprang to his lips.

In the centre of the room a table was laid, and going over to it, she busied herself with the cups and saucers as though she were anxious to put a disagreeable presence out of her thoughts.

“May I share your supper?” he asked, and waited, not without amusement, for her answer.

“I’m sorry there isn’t any for you at the big house,” she answered politely.  “If you will sit down, I’ll tell Delily to bring in some batter bread.”

“And you?”

“I’ll have mine with grandfather.  He’s out in the barn giving medicine to the red cow.”

While she spoke Delily entered with a plate of cornbread and a pot of coffee, and a minute later Reuben Merryweather paused on the threshold to shake off a sprinkling of bran from his hair and beard.  He was a bent, mild looking old man, with a wooden leg which made a stumping noise when he walked, and a pair of wistful brown eyes, like those of an aged hound that has been worn out by hard service.  Past seventy now, his youth had been trained to a different civilization,