Miss Mattie broke down, the not fully realised strain of fifteen years had made itself felt when the cord snapped.  “I don’t know how to thank you.  I don’t know what to say.  Oh, William! it seems too good to be true.”

“What you crying about, Mattie?” said he in sore distress.  “Now hold on!  Listen to me a minute!  There’s something I want you to do for me.”

“What is it?” she asked, drying her eyes.  “For dinner to-morrow,” he replied, “let’s have a roast of beef about that size,” indicating a wash-tub.

The diversion was complete.

“Why, Will!  What would we ever do with it?” said she.

“Do with it?  Why, eat it!”

“But we couldn’t eat all that!”

“Then throw what’s left to the cats.  You ain’t going to fall down on me the first favour I ask?” with mock seriousness.

“You shall have the roast of beef.  ’Pears to me that you’re fond of your stomach, Will,” said Miss Mattie, with a recovering smile.

“I have a good stomach, that’s always done the right thing by me, when I’ve done the right thing by it,” said Red.  “And moreover, just look at the constitution I have to support.  But say, old lady, look at that!” pointing to the clock.  “Eleven-thirty; time decent people were putting up for the night.”

The words brought to an acute stage a wandering fear which had passed through Miss Mattie’s mind at intervals during the evening.  Where was she to look for sleeping accommodations for a man?  She revolted against the convention, that, in her own mind, as well as the rest of Fairfield, forbade the use of her house for the purpose.  Long habit of thought had made these niceties constitutional.  It was almost as difficult for Miss Mattie to say “I’ll fix up your bed right there on the sofa” as it would have been for Red to pick a man’s pocket, yet, when she thought of his instant and open generosity and what a dismal return therefor it would be to thrust him out for reasons which she divined would have no meaning for him, she heroically resolved to throw custom to the winds, and speak.

But the difficulty was cut in another fashion.

“There’s a little barn in the back-yard that caught my eye,” said Red, “and if you’ll lend me a blanket I’ll roll it out there.”

“Sleep in the barn!  You’ll not do any such thing!” cried Miss Mattie.  “You’ll sleep right here on the sofa, or upstairs in my bed, just as you choose.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not.  So help me Bob!  I’d smother in here.  Had the darnedest time coming on that ever was—­hotels.  Little white rooms with the walls coming in on you.  Worse than rattlesnakes for keeping a man awake.  Reminds me of the hospital.  Horse fell on me once and smashed me up so that I had to be sent to get puttied up again, and I never struck such a month as that since I was born.  The doc. told me I mustn’t move, but I told him I’d chuck him out of the window if he tried to stop me, and up I got.  I’d have gone dead sure if they’d held me a week more.  I speak for the barn, Mattie, and I speak real loud; that is, I mean to say I’m going to sleep in the barn, unless there’s somebody a heap larger than you on the premises.  Now, there’s no use for you to talk—­I’m going to do just as I say.”