the blush as part of her general excitement. He permitted her to drag
him into the room and seat him before the hearth, where she sank down on
one knee to pull off his heavy rubber boots. But he waved her aside at
this, pulled them off with his own hands, and let her take them to the
kitchen and bring back his slippers. By this time a smile had lighted
up his hard face. The room was certainly more comfortable and cheerful.
Still he was a little worried; was there not in these changes a falling
away from the grace of self-abnegation which she had so sedulously
practiced?

When supper was served by Jane, in the dull dining-room, Mr. Rylands,
had he not been more engaged in these late domestic changes, might
have noticed that the Missouri girl waited upon him with a certain
commiserating air that was remarkable by its contrast with the frigid
ceremonious politeness with which she attended her mistress. It had not
escaped Mrs. Rylands, however, who ever since Jack's abrupt departure
had noticed this change in the girl's demeanor to herself, and with
a woman's intuitive insight of another woman, had fathomed it. The
comfortable tete-a-tete with Jack, which Jane had looked forward to,
Mrs. Rylands had anticipated herself, and then sent him off! When Joshua
thanked his wife for remembering the pepper-sauce, and Mrs. Rylands
pathetically admitted her forgetfulness, the head-toss which Jane
gave as she left the room was too marked to be overlooked by him. Mrs.
Rylands gave a hysterical little laugh. "I am afraid Jane doesn't like
my sending away the expressman just after I had also dismissed the
stranger whom she had taken a fancy to, and left her without company,"
she said unwisely.

Mr. Rylands did not laugh. "I reckon," he returned slowly, "that Jane
must feel kinder lonely; she bears all the burden of our bein' outer the