“Dar’s nuffin lef fer me but ter put out fer freedom,” he soliloquized; “ki!  I’se a-gwine ter git eben wid dat yallar gal yet.  I’ll cut stick ter-morrer night and she’ll tink I ’sconded alone, totin’ de box wid me, and dat she was too sharp in dat ’liance business.”

So it turned out; Jeff and his fiddle vanished, leaving nothing to sustain Suky under the gibes of her associates except the ring, which she eventually learned was as brazen as her own ambition.

Jeff wandered into the service of a Union officer whose patience he tried even more than that of his tolerant Southern mistress; but when by the camp-fire he brought out his violin, all his shortcomings were condoned.

CAUGHT ON THE EBB-TIDE

The August morning was bright and fair, but Herbert Scofield’s brow was clouded.  He had wandered off to a remote part of the grounds of a summer hotel on the Hudson, and seated in the shade of a tree, had lapsed into such deep thought that his cigar had gone out and the birds were becoming bold in the vicinity of his motionless figure.

It was his vacation time and he had come to the country ostensibly for rest.  As the result, he found himself in the worst state of unrest that he had ever known.  Minnie Madison, a young lady he had long admired, was the magnet that had drawn him hither.  Her arrival had preceded his by several weeks; and she had smiled a little consciously when in looking at the hotel register late one afternoon his bold chirography met her eye.

“There are so many other places to which he might have gone,” she murmured.

Her smile, however, was a doubtful one, not expressive of gladness and entire satisfaction.  In mirthful, saucy fashion her thoughts ran on:  “The time has come when he might have a respite from business.  Does he still mean business by coming here?  I’m not sure that I do, although the popular idea seems to be that a girl should have no vacation in the daily effort to find a husband.  I continually disappoint the good people by insisting that the husband must find me.  I have a presentiment that Mr. Scofield is looking for me; but there are some kinds of property which cannot be picked up and carried off, nolens volens, when found.”

Scofield had been animated by no such clearly defined purpose as he was credited with when he sought the summer resort graced by Miss Madison.  His action seemed to him tentative, his motive ill-defined even in his own consciousness, yet it had been strong enough to prevent any hesitancy.  He knew he was weary from a long year’s work.  He purposed to rest and take life very leisurely, and he had mentally congratulated himself that he was doing a wise thing in securing proximity to Miss Madison.  She had evoked his admiration in New York, excited more than a passing interest, but he felt that he did not know her very well.  In the unconventional life now