“No; in Smoky Hill.”
“Very respectable, I have no doubt. I should like to know her father, and congratulate him.”
“Her father is dead,” I answered.
“Oh! Dead.”
He walked on in silence for a considerable distance.
“An orphan. It’s a pity.”
I narrated what little I could tell of the family after the promise to Agnes, though I longed to tell him of her mother; but it seemed to bore him, and he dismissed the subject after I had concluded in a rhapsody for the gentle and patient Agnes.
By this time we had reached the cross-road, leading in one direction to the church and in the other toward his home. He stopped here, and said:—
“I will not go to the church to-night, if you will be good enough to present my excuse to your father. It is a long road home, and I must walk it. You know that you are always welcome at the mill, and that Jo is anxious to see you. Good-night.”
He turned abruptly on his heel, and, walking away, his form was soon lost in the rapidly approaching darkness.