water? Ha! Ze gallant Tristam has him in-stant-a-neousment. Does a mosquito appear? Ha!" Jacqueline made a brisk, but delectable, pantomime with her lips to show me how Tristam proceeded in the matter of mosquitos. "Does a worm intrude?" Shuddering slightly, but proudly still, Jacqueline indicated the fate of the hapless worm.

"But what is the glass for?" I asked, with increasing respect.

"Ze silver has melted off ze back," confessed Jacqueline; "but once it was a looking-glass for Tristam to t'ink he had friends."

"And what are the shells for?"

"For Tristam to hear ze ocean roar." "But what's the ball for?" "For Tristam to play wiv, of course." "And the stick and the bells?" Jacqueline blushed a little.

"He rub' his back against ze stick," she said, "and zen-you know?-ze bells ring."

I was still regarding these ingenious domestic arrangements when Jacqueline's expected company drove up to the house. Whereupon I fastened the hammock between two apple-trees near Tristam's home, and it was there that Jacqueline found me late in the afternoon, reading a book, watching the apples grow, thinking --and this the most-of my young hostess, and vainly listening for the blissful tinkle of Tristam's chime of bells.

I

"Well," said Jacqueline, evidently referring to her company, "zey have gone, an' still Aunt Gabrielle returns not. hope she gets back before it grows dark." Evidently referring again to her company, she added: "Zat was my Uncle Will Harris an' his wife. Uncle Will an' my poor papa fight side by side in ze Civil War. He call' me a li'l' French nutneg. What is zat-a nutneg?"

My reply, which I was somewhat carefully formulating with the view to flavoring it with the spice of wit, was interrupted by the approach of a large touringcar. The car came hesitating-one might almost say that it came stammeringalong the road, and stopped in front of the house. On the driver's seat was a rosy-faced young man, apparently on the verge of temper, and by his side was a girlish figure, heavily veiled, but exceedingly straight of back.

"I say," shouted the young man, “can we get any gasolene around here?"

"The nearest depot for gasolene," I answered, Jacqueline prompting me, "is Windsor Locks."

At this, the rosy-faced young driver spoke humbly to the girl in the veils. What she told him in reply I cannot tell, but his countenance suddenly turned from the color of roses to a very rich tint of geraniums. He jumped out of the car, slammed the door behind him,-whereat Jacqueline's figure stiffened in sympathy with that exceedingly straight back in the car, and started over the grass toward But on his way a better thought struck him. He went back to the car, opened the door, shut it gently ("Bon! bon!" murmured Jacqueline), and then for the second time hurried over to where we were sitting.

us.

He had run out of gasolene, he told us, although at the garage they had distinctly assured him that the tank was full. It was was important, imperative, that they should reach Litchfield in time for dinner. Was there no way in which he could get some gasolene and get it quickly?

Thus appealed to, Jacqueline remembered a farmer three miles away who had a car and a gasolene engine to saw his wood. A neighbor's boy was drafted to drive there at full speed. The rosy-faced young man hurried to the nearest telephone and, when he returned, Jacqueline and the straight-backed girl were sitting on the front veranda, very much interested in each other. At his approach, Jacqueline joined me around the corner of the veranda and left them together.

"You have seen her?" whispered Jacqueline. queline. "She is pretty as pictures. But zat yo'ng man he had better keep his eye scrape'. I do not t'ink she love' him well enough yet zat he can quarrel wiv immunity. It is zeir firs' tiffy, an' she take' it ver', ver' hard."

As though in confirmation of Jacqueline's observation, we heard the girl's voice. "I shall never speak to you again as long as I live," she was saying.

"Ah-ha!" breathed Jacqueline, a tender look in her eyes. "She love' him, after all."

"It sounds so," I protested under my

breath.

"Of course she does," whispered Jac

queline. "All lovers talk like zat. Maybe soon she 'll tell him zat she hate' him. Lees-ten!"

"I hate you!" the girl was saying to the rosy-faced young man.

"Did n' I tell you?" murmured Jacqueline. "Lees-ten. If you will fetch from ze well a pail of water, I will make some lemonade an' tea. Zey mus' be t'irsty, poor t'ings! An' when ze dust gets in ze wheels-you know?-'squeak! squeak!'"

I hurried to the spring through the gathering gloom, and upon my return Jacqueline was lighting an alcohol lamp on the sheltered side of the veranda. I carried the pail to her, and the moment Jacqueline looked into the water I knew what I had done.

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" she cried fortissimo, "you have caught li'l' Tristam!" And in a flood of pity she bent over him. “Ah, you poor, poor boy! To bring you from your nice cool well into ze warm outside!"

Obviously this was too much for the straight-backed girl. She strolled around the corner of the veranda, all eyes to see, and a moment later she and Tristam were staring at each other through the water. "Is n't he a darling!" exclaimed the straight-backed girl. "Did you say his name was Tristam ?"

"Yes," said Jacqueline. "He has his apartment in ze well, an' zis is ze second time he has call' at ze house in a pail."

Whereupon the rosy-faced young man could n't stand it any longer, and he casually turned the corner of the veranda. Jacqueline caught my eye, and we went into the house together. "Tristam will make zem talk," she whispered, "an' zey will hold a reonion over his pail." She led me into the front room, from where we basely peeped through the curtains. The girl had taken off her dust-coat. She was dressed in gauzy white, and her veils floated about her like a lavender-tinted cloud.

"Kitty," exclaimed the rosy-faced young man, rosier-faced than ever, "forgive me!"

He took a step toward her, and she took a step away.

"Silly puss!" muttered Jacqueline. "Many a girl has died an ancient maiden because she did not know when to make it up."

"Kitty!" implored the young man. Again he took a step toward her, and again she retreated. Right behind her then was the little table upon which Jacqueline's alcohol lamp was burning. In the light breeze the girl's veils found the flame. The next moment there was a flash of fire, and then a muffled shriek of alarm. We rushed to the door, but when we reached them, the rosy-faced young man had dashed the pail of water over the girl's blazing dress, and she, with both her fires simultaneously extinguished, had fallen into his arms, and was holding him very tightly around the collar.

"Zere!" cried Jacqueline in subdued delight, after she had snatched up the wildly flopping Tristam, and we had run and slipped him back into the spring. "Did n' I tell you Tristam would do it? Ah, you 've no ideas what a gallant li'l' fellow he is."

"But you don't think he wanted to do it, do you?" I asked in renewed astonishment, watching Tristam vigorously swimming around in the cool depths below.

"Of course he want' to do it," she joyfully maintained. "Did n' you see how happy he flop' himself jus' when I pick' him up? An' when zose two started kissing as we run away, did n' you notice how Tristam roll his eye an' wiggle-wag his jolie li'l' tail?"

Thus reduced to silence, I could only make a faint, weak gesture while I stared alternately at Tristam and at Jacqueline. From the bells on the top of Tristam's rubbing-post a melodious tinkle suddenly

arose.

"Ha!" I said, relieved at having something tangible to work upon at last. "He 's scratching his back!"

"Scratching his back!" scoffed Jacqueline, full of a tender scorn, and her eyes dancing with greater delight than ever, she looked into mine and softly hummed a bar from the Wedding March in "Lohen

she took another step away.

bells!"

The lusty child upon her shoulder

her soul filled with content. About her stretched a wilderness, a desert, vast, Godforgotten; but here was home. It was a sheep-herder's wagon-house. Lowly, isolate, vagrant, a wanderer upon the face of the desert, this weather-beaten canvas dwelling-place nevertheless proved its claim to the title, for a cozy curl of smoke issued from the stovepipe thrust through the canvas, and a legless, woolly dog lay near at hand.

"They 're comin', Jeddy!" S'bina cried of a sudden as she caught sight of the faroff, drab blotch. "Jeddy, Jeddy, hurry up!" The blotch increased, began to take form. "We can't hardly wait,—can we? -we got such a lot to tell him.”

Jeddy toddled to her. She snatched him up, rattling on like an excited child herself. "We'll show him the woolly dog, and he'll make its legs all well, like he doctors the lambs. I wonder if he'll say you growed since this mornin'? And you must say your new word for him first thing. Won't he be s'prised? Every word gets you nearer to college." Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shone with the excitement of the home-coming hour; laughing, chattering, she swung the sturdy child to her broad shoulder as a man might.

The herd drew nearer. The familiar odor, the tinkle, the barking of old Piute, the foolish, noisy gabble of the sheep, approached.

"I don't see him yet," S'bina murmured, narrowing her eyes, searching the distance. "Maybe he sees us, though. Wave to him, Jeddy! Wave hard!"

So they waited in sharp relief against the twilight sky, symbolic figures, standing for the joyful welcome at the end of the day's toil, for love and warmth and home. Stalwart, full-bosomed, maternal, the woman stood erect, her hair and her garments fluttering in the light evening.

stood the battered wagon; beneath its stained roof comfort and cheer awaited the shepherd.

So the two watched, throbbing with expectation. The tinkle, the gabble, the barking grew louder, the odor more distinct. One thing only was missing: the huge, rough-hewn, powerful figure which five years before had led S'bina a bride to the wagon-home; the figure which every morning she had watched as it vanished in the distance beside the herd; the figure for which every evening she had hoisted the pennant of smoke in loving welcome.

Her laughter, her chatter, died away. Puzzled, she watched. Had he lingered for a stray? But in that case the dog

The child's arms dropped; he fretted questioningly. The herd was close now, Piute leaping and yelping.

In a vague terror she drew Jeddy down from her shoulder and held him close to her breast. She silenced the dog sharply.

"Piute, tell me quick-where is he?"

Only a meaningless barking, a confusion of noise, answered her. Still, while she held the baby close, her eyes searched the desert here, there, everywhere, demanding an answer of it; and it spoke no more than a sphinx. Only this she knew the sheep had returned shepherdless.

FOR hours S'bina waited, tense, for the stage. She went out to the road to meet it; old Brig stopped at her signal.

"Have you seen Jed?" she asked him. "Jed? Sure. I drove him to-" He broke off abruptly as the truth rushed in upon him. "My God!" he said, "ain't you knowed where Jed 's went?" Wordless, she stared at him. "So that's it," the old driver said at last; "so it 's took him again."

"You-you drove him to the train? He- he went away?"