"You know, the Yankee school teacher," Miner growled. He was standing inside a kind of wire cage which separated the post-office department from the rest of the store of Hobbs & Thompson, the charge of the mail having recently been given to the two men.

"How'd you find out?"

"Letters!" The little man was assorting the mail with an energy that Pennyroyal's one dozen epistles or less a day hardly justified. This was one morning less than a week after the unsuccessful midnight excursion.

Ambrose now crossed his feet, resting his weight on his elbows against the bales of cotton cloth. He was staring solemnly at his partner. "Em'ly Dunham is a pretty name, Miner; kind of soft and gentle, yet with plenty of spirit in it. I am reckoning some one in Pennyroyal ought to try and make things up to her."

With a sigh the other man climbed up to perch on his high official stool. "Ain't you never goin' to stop thinkin' of females and marryin', Ambrose? I thought mebbe when you lost Sarah you was cured!"

Ambrose leaned farther over, shaking his head. "No," he answered simply, "I reckon not. I wonder ef you have ever thought, Miner, of how much them two little words—livin' and lovin'—are alike. I don't think it was an accident, jest the difference of that one little letter. Not that I intend marryin' again—I am through with marryin' forever—it's you, Miner Hobbs, I'm worryin' over." Here, because of his earnestness, Ambrose left his place and coming across the aisle looked down over the wire netting upon his friend. "Miner," he repeated as sternly as he was able, "your time has come. There ain't nothin' so no 'count on earth as an old bachelor. It's worse than an old maid and different, because perhaps an old maid couldn't help gettin' left out, but the Lord's given every man a chance to improve his condition jest by askin'. Course he may have to ask more'n one and mebbe more'n once, but there ain't no age limit to stop him. Then think, Miner, what chances always lies in villages. Why, villages is nature's nunneries. Ain't it time fer you to do a man's part?"

There was silence for a little time, Miner making no response, although from over in his corner Moses growled in his sleep.

Then the tall man coughed apologetically. He looked tired, as though he had been awake many hours the night before. "I didn't mean to rile you any," he continued, "only I can't help thinkin' that a man without a wife is like a little boat a-floatin' on the sea of life without a rudder and bound for nowhere in particular. Ef you don't marry you'll be awful sorry when you're an old man, Miner, and ef you've been kind of overfed on Pennyrile girls, why, this here new school teacher——"

Miner fairly bounced up and down on his stool in his impatience. "Lord, why shouldn't I be sorry when I'm old instead of when I'm young? Mebbe I won't live to get old and then I'd 'a' made myself wretcheder'n a slave and all fer nothin'."

At this second, the door opening, the speaker collapsed, while Ambrose shot backward behind the counter toward the rear of the shop. A flood of June sunshine entered with the girl, and Ambrose heard her name for the second time as she asked the terrified Miner for her mail. He also saw her plainly. She was twenty-five or perhaps a little more, with hair that was brown or gold as the light shone upon it; gray eyes set wide apart—eyes that might at times be cold and then shine warmly like a cloud suddenly shot through by the sun; her mouth was larger and her chin firmer than beauty requires, and yet both showed curves of frequent and redeeming laughter. She was tall, with broad shoulders and a slender body, and there was about her a hint of delicate and unconscious coquetry, noticeable as she talked with Miner while making her purchases, the little man coming out from his retreat to serve her and afterward following her into the street, where he was gone for almost an hour.