roses to ye. Cynthy's fixin' 'em on yer table. I'm well as ever I am; but
her, she's too complaining to come in fer show-day. This morning, early,
we see some the Cross-Roads folks pass the place towards town, an' she
sent me in to tell ye. Oh, I knowed ye'd laugh. Says she, 'He's too much
of a man to be skeered,' says she, 'these here tall, big men always 'low
nothin' on earth kin hurt 'em,' says she, 'but you tell him to be
keerful,' says she; an' I see Bill Skillett an' his brother on the Square
lessun a half-an-hour ago, 'th my own eyes. I won't keep ye from yer
breakfast.--Eph Watts is in there, eatin'. He's come back; but I guess I
don't need to warn ye agin' him. He seems peaceable enough. It's the other
folks you got to look out fer."

He limped away. The editor waved his hand to him from the door, but the
old fellow shook his head, and made a warning, friendly gesture with his
arm.

Harkless usually ate his breakfast alone, as he was the latest riser in
Plattville. (There were days in the winter when he did not reach the hotel
until eight o'clock.) This morning he found a bunch of white roses, still
wet with dew and so fragrant that the whole room was fresh and sweet with
their odor, prettily arranged in a bowl on the table, and, at his plate,
the largest of all with a pin through the stem. He looked up, smilingly,
and nodded at the red-haired girl. "Thank you, Charmion," he said. "That's
very pretty."

She turned even redder than she always was, and answered nothing,
vigorously darting her brush at an imaginary fly on the cloth. After
several minutes she said abruptly, "You're welcome."

There was a silence, finally broken by a long, gasping sigh. Astonished,