LITMIR.BIZ

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whenever I think of you. However, under the circumstances, you must so far overcome your prejudice as to accept the use of my mare."

      There was a mingling of hauteur and amusement in the girl's voice and countenance as she answered:

      "Permit me, Mr. Pegram, to thank you for your courteous proffer of help, and to decline it."

      "I need no thanks," he said, "for a trifling courtesy which is so obviously imperative. As for declining it, why of course you cannot do that."

      "Why not?" she asked, resentfully. "Am I not my own mistress? Surely you would not take advantage of my mishap to force unwelcome attentions upon me?"

      The utterance was an affront, and Baillie Pegram saw clearly that it was intended to be such. He bit his lip, but controlled himself.

      "I will not think," he answered, "that you quite meant to say that. You are too just to do even me a wrong, and surely I have not deserved such an affront at your hands. Nor can the circumstances that prompt you to decline any unnecessary courtesy at my hands justify you in—well, in saying what you have just said. I have not sought to force attentions upon you, and you know it. I have only asked you to let me behave like a gentleman under circumstances which are not of my making or my seeking. Your horse is hopelessly lamed—so hopelessly that as soon as you are gone, I am going to kill him by the roadside as an act of ordinary humanity. You are fully five miles from The Oaks, where you are staying with your aunts. Except in this bit of pine barren, the roads are exceedingly muddy. You are habited for riding, and you could not walk far in that costume, even upon the best of roads. You simply must make use of my mare. I cannot permit you to refuse. If I did so, I should incur the lasting and just disapproval of your aunts, The Oaks ladies. You certainly do not wish me to do that. I have placed your saddle upon my mare, and I am waiting to help you mount."

      The girl hesitated, bewildered, unwilling, and distinctly in that feminine state of mind which women call "vexed." At last she asked:

      "What will you do if I refuse?"

      "O, in that case I shall turn the mare loose, and walk at a respectful distance behind you as you trudge over the miry road, until you become hopelessly involved in the red clay at Vinegar Post. Then I shall rush to your rescue like a gallant knight, and carry you pick-a-back all the way to The Oaks. It will be a singularly undignified approach to a mansion in which the proprieties of life are sternly insisted upon. Don't you think you'd better take the mare, Miss Ronald?"

      The girl stood silent for nearly a minute in a half-angry mood of resistance, which was in battle with the laughing demon that just now possessed her. She did not want to laugh. She was determined not to laugh. Therefore she laughed uncontrollably, as one is apt to do when something ludicrous occurs at a funeral. Presently she said:

      "I wonder what it was all about anyhow—the quarrel, I mean, between your grandfather and my poor father?"

      There was a touch of melancholy in her tone as she spoke of her "poor father"—for that phrase, in Virginian usage, always meant that the dear one mentioned was dead. "I wonder what it was that makes it so imperative for me to be formally courteous beyond the common to you, and at the same time highly improper for me to accept such ordinary courtesies at your hands as I freely accept from others, thinking nothing about the matter."

      "Would you really like to know?" the young man asked.

      "Yes—no. I'm not quite certain. Sometimes I want to know—just now, for example—so that I may know just what my duty is. But at other times I think it should be enough for me, as a well-ordered young person, to know that I must be loyal to my poor father's memory, and never forgive a Pegram while I live. My good aunts have taught me that much, but they have never told me anything about the origin of the feud. All I know is that, in order to be true to the memory of my poor father, who died before I was born, I must always remember that the Ronalds and the Pegrams are hereditary enemies. That is why I refuse to use the mare which you have so courteously offered me, Mr. Pegram."

      "Still," answered the young man, as if arguing the matter out with himself, "it might not compromise your dignity so much to ride a mare that belongs to me, as to let me 'tote' you home—for that is precisely what I must do if you persist in your refusal."

      The girl again laughed, merrily this time, but still she hesitated:

      "Listen!" said Baillie; "that's my boy Sam coming. It would be unseemly for us to continue our quarrel in the presence of a servant."

      As he spoke the voice of Sam rose from beyond the pines, in a ditty which he was singing with all the power of a robust set of vocal organs:

      "My own Eliza gal—she's de colour ob de night,

       When de moon it doesn't shine a little bit;

       But her teeth shows white in de shaddah ob de night,

       And her eyes is like a lantern when it's lit.

      "Oh, Eliza!

       How I prize yeh!

       You'se de nicest gal dere is;

       It's fer you dat I'se a-pinin',

       For you're like a star dat's shinin'

       When de moon it's done forgitten how to riz."

      With that Sam came beaming upon the scene. His round, black, shining visage, and eyes that glittered with a humour which might have won an anchorite to merriment, resembled nothing so much as the sun at its rising, if one may think of the sun as black and glistening from a diligent rubbing with a bacon rind, which was Sam's favourite cosmetic, as it is of all the very black negroes.

      Sam was sitting sidewise upon a saddleless mule, but when he saw the situation he quickly slipped to the ground, pulled his woolly forelock in lieu of doffing the hat which he had not, and asked:

      "What's de mattah, Mas' Baillie?"

      The girl saw the impropriety of continuing the discussion—it had ceased to be a quarrel now—in Sam's presence. So she held out her hand, and said:

      "Thank you very much, Mr. Pegram. I will ride your beautiful mare, and to-morrow, if you are so minded, you may call at The Oaks to inquire how the animal has behaved toward me. Good morning, sir!"

      She sprang into the saddle without waiting for young Pegram to assist her, for she was even yet determined to accept no more of attention at his hands than she must. He, in his turn, was too greatly relieved by this ending of the embarrassing scene to care for the implied snub to his gallantry. As soon as the girl rode away, which she did without pausing for a moment, Baillie Pegram turned to Sam, and without inquiring upon what errand that worthy had been going, gave the order:

      "Mount your mule and ride at a respectful distance behind Miss Agatha Ronald. She may have trouble with that half-broken mare of mine. And mind you, boy, don't entertain the young lady with any of your songs as you go. When you get back to Warlock, bring me a horse to the Court-house, do you hear?"

      Then leading the wounded animal upon three legs into the woods near by, Pegram fired a charge of shot from the fowling-piece which he carried, into its brain, killing the poor beast instantly and painlessly.

      Having discharged this duty of mercy, the young man, with high boots drawn over his trousers' legs, set out with a brisk stride for the county-seat village, known only as "the Court-house." Entering the clerk's office, he said to the county clerk:

      "As a magistrate of this county I direct you to enter a fine of five dollars against Baillie Pegram, Esq., supervisor of the Vinegar Post road, for his neglect to keep the bridge over Dogwood Branch in repair. Here's the money. Give me a receipt, please, and make the proper entries upon the court records."

      "Pardon me, Mr. Pegram," answered the clerk, "but you remember that at the last term of the county court, with a full bench of magistrates sitting, it was decided to adjourn the court indefinitely in view of the disturbed condition of the time?"

      "I remember that," answered the young man, "but that action was taken only upon the ground that under present circumstances it would

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