“Ah, you were a gay young bird, but it’s over now,” commented Solomon.

“I ain’t regrettin’ it since I’ve lived long enough to repent of it,” responded the ancient sinner.

“What worries me,” said young Adam, pursuing his habitual train of despondency, “is that my life is just one long repentance with naught in it worth repentin’ of.  ’Tain’t for lack of ch’ice I’ve never tasted, but for lack of opportunity.”

“Well, thar’s some that even sinners can’t suffer,” commented his father.  “You are short of words, miller.”

“I was thinkin’,” replied Abel roughly, draining his glass, and rising to his feet while he drew on his sheepskin gloves, “that when the thought of a woman once gets into the brain it’s worse than a maggot.”

“The best way is to get her,” retorted Solomon, “but that ain’t so easy a matter as it looks, unless you are a parson.  Was thar ever a parson, Mr. Doolittle, that couldn’t get married as often as he’d take the notion?”

“Thar may be sech, but I’ve never seed him an’ never heard on him,” responded old Adam. “’Tis kind of professional work with ’em an’ they’ve got the advantage of the rest of us bein’ so used to pulpit speakin’.”

“I suppose our Mr. Mullen might have whomsoever he’d set his eyes on,” pursued Solomon.

“Without a doubt he might.  If all else failed him he’d but to ax her in his pulpit gown an’ his prayin’ voice, an’ thar’d be no gainsayin’ him for a female.  Let him boom out ‘Dearly Beloved,’ as he does in church an’ ten chances to one she’d answer ‘Amen’ just out of the habit.  I’m a bold man, suh, an’ I’ve al’ays been, but I ain’t one to stand up ag’inst a preacher when thar’s a woman in the race.”

Wrapping his blue knitted comforter about his throat, Abel nodded, good-humoredly to the group, and went out to his gig, which he had left under a shed in the yard.  As he removed the blanket from his mare, his mind dwelt stubbornly on the remarks old Adam had let fall concerning clergymen and women.  He had already convinced himself that the Reverend Mr. Mullen was the object of Molly’s preference, and his nature was big enough to rejoice that she should have chosen so good a man.  At least, if this were true, Jonathan Gay would not be his rival.

It was the season of the year when the sunny days gave place to frosty nights, and all the changes of the autumn—­the reddening of the fruit, the ripening of the nuts, the falling of the leaves—­appeared to occur in the hours between sunset and sunrise.  A thin and watery moon shed a spectral light over the meadows, which seemed to float midway between the ashen band of the road and the jagged tops of the pines on the horizon.  There was no wind, and the few remaining leaves on the trees looked as if they were cut out of velvet.  The promise of a hoar-frost was in the air—­and a silver veil lay already over the distance.