prematurely blighted them.  The coldly glittering grate below was also decorated with withered sprays, as if an attempt had been made to burn them, but was frustrated through damp.  Suddenly recalled to a sense of her wet boots and the new carpet, she hurriedly turned away, crossed the hall into the dining-room, and thence passed into the kitchen.  The “hired girl,” a large-boned Missourian, a daughter of a neighboring woodman, was peeling potatoes at the table.  Mrs. Rylands drew a chair before the kitchen stove, and put her wet feet on the hob.

“I’ll bet a cooky, Mess Rylands, you’ve done forgot the vanillar,” said the girl, with a certain domestic and confidential familiarity.

Mrs. Rylands started guiltily.  She made a miserable feint of looking in her lap and on the table.  “I’m afraid I did, Jane, if I didn’t bring it in here.”

“That you didn’t,” returned Jane.  “And I reckon ye forgot that ’ar pepper-sauce for yer husband.”

Mrs. Rylands looked up with piteous contrition.  “I really don’t know what’s the matter with me.  I certainly went into the shop, and had it on my list,—­and—­really”—­

Jane evidently knew her mistress, and smiled with superior toleration.  “It’s kinder bewilderin’ goin’ in them big shops, and lookin’ round them stuffed shelves.”  The shop at the cross roads and post-office was 14 x 14, but Jane was nurtured on the plains.  “Anyhow,” she added good-humoredly, “the expressman is sure to look in as he goes by, and you’ve time to give him the order.”

“But is he sure to come?” asked Mrs. Rylands anxiously.  “Mr. Rylands will be so put out without his pepper-sauce.”

“He’s sure to come ef he knows you’re here.  Ye kin always kalkilate on that.”

“Why?” said Mrs. Rylands abstractedly.

“Why? ’cause he just can’t keep his eyes off ye!  That’s why he comes every day,—­’tain’t jest for trade!”

This was quite true, not only of the expressman, but of the butcher and baker, and the “candlestick-maker,” had there been so advanced a vocation at the cross roads.  All were equally and curiously attracted by her picturesque novelty.  Mrs. Rylands knew this herself, but without vanity or coquettishness.  Possibly that was why the other woman told her.  She only slightly deepened the lines of discontent in her cheek and said abstractedly, “Well, when he comes, you ask him.”

She dried her shoes, put on a pair of slippers that had a faded splendor about them, and went up to her bedroom.  Here she hesitated for some time between the sewing-machine and her knitting-needles, but finally settled upon the latter, and a pair of socks for her husband which she had begun a year ago.  But she presently despaired of finishing them before he returned, three hours hence, and so applied herself to the sewing-machine.  For a little while its singing hum was heard between the blasts that shook the house, but the thread presently