"'Tain't what her and him says that matters to me," Mr. Lindsay soothed her: "I reckon you and me are the next theng to old enough to know our own business, ain't we?"
"I know hit," Miss Lucy mourned, "but they worry me so. Ef you don't keer, Mr.—Mr.—"
"I'm Nathan to you, Lucy," Mr. Lindsay corrected her tenderly.
"I jest wanted to say I'd love to keep hit a secret a while any way. 'Twon't be no harm, will hit?"
"Ef you want to, of course hit won't," Mr. Lindsay assured her cheerfully. "I've been thenkin' about hit," he said after a moment, "and I believe ef prices are anyways good this spreng, I'll go into tobacco raisin' ag'in. Jest us two to live, a body might make a little somethin' at hit. Next year I might fill a barn as big as this ef I had no bad luck."
Neither of them had observed the fact that the rumble of the passing wagon had ceased when it reached the barn, nor did they notice the shadow that at this moment fell across the light that came in between two beech planks at the corner of the barn nearest them, made by the pressing of a coarse ear to the fissure. The owner of the ear had caught the sound of voices, and thinking he heard Miss Lucy speak, wished to assure himself of the fact before entering the barn.
"O Miss Luty," little Katie shrilled, "somebody's dot in de shunshine!"
There was a hasty removal of the coarse ear from the timbers, and a lusty cough, and just as the astonished pair of sitters within the barn sprang to their feet, Mr. Brock's stolid face appeared in the doorway.
"Mr. Castle asked me to keep a sharp lookout for night riders about the barns, Miss Lucy," he said, breaking the embarrassed silence. "Mr. Castle's mighty scarey, you know."
Miss Lucy turned white and red, by turns, in an agony of embarrassment, and remained dumb. Mr. Lindsay found his voice.