and coveted in all the country.
"None of yer ars," Claib said, coaxingly, as the animal threw up its graceful neck defiantly. "You've got to git along, 'case Mas'r Hugh say so. You knows Mas'r Hugh."
"What is it?" Hugh asked, coming out upon the stoop, and comprehending the trouble at a glance. "Rocket, Rocket," he cried, "easy, my boy," and in an instant Rocket's defiant attitude changed to one of perfect obedience.
"There, my beauty," he said, as the animal continued to prance around him, now snuffing at the snow, which he evidently did not fancy, and then pawing at it with his forefeet. "There, my beauty, you've showed off enough. Come, now, I've work for you to do."
Docile as a lamb when Hugh commanded, he stood quietly while Claib equipped him for his morning's task.
"Tell mother I shan't be back to breakfast," Hugh said, as he sprang into the saddle, and giving loose rein to Rocket went galloping through the snow.
Under ordinary circumstances that early ride would have been vastly exhilarating to Hugh, who enjoyed the bracing air, but there was too much now upon his mind to admit of his enjoying anything. Thoughts of Adah, and the increased expense her presence would necessarily bring, flitted across his mind, while Barney's bill, put over once, and due again ere long, sat like a nightmare on him, for he saw no way in which to meet it. No way save one, and Rocket surely must have felt the throbbing of Hugh's heart as that one way flashed upon him, for he gave a kind of coaxing whine, and dashed on over the billowy drifts faster than before.
"No, Rocket, no," and Hugh patted his glossy neck. He'd never part with Rocket, never. He'd sell Spring Bank first with all its incumbrances.
It was now three days since Hugh had gladdened Aunt Eunice's cottage with the sunshine of his presence, and when she awoke that morning, and saw how high the snow was piled around her door, she said to herself, "The boy'll be here directly to know if I'm alive," and this accounted for the round deal table drawn so cozily before the blazing fire, and looking so inviting with its two plates and cups, one a fancy china affair, sacredly kept for Hugh, whose coffee always tasted better when sipped from its gilded side, the lightest of egg bread was steaming on the hearth, the tenderest of steak was broiling on the griddle, while the odor of the coffee boiling on the coals came tantalizingly to Hugh's olfactories as Aunt Eunice opened the door, saying pleasantly:
"I told 'em so. I felt it in my bones, and the breakfast is all but ready. Put Rocket up directly, and come in to the fire."
Fastening Rocket in his accustomed place in the outer shed, Hugh stamped the snow from his heavy boots, and then went in to Aunt Eunice's cheerful kitchen-parlor, as she called it, where the tempting breakfast stood upon the table.
"No coffee! What new freak is that?" and Aunt Eunice gazed at him in astonishment as he declined the cup she had prepared with so much care, dropping in the whitest lumps of sugar, and stirring in the thickest cream.
It cost Hugh a terrible struggle to refuse that cup of coffee, but if he would retrench, he must begin at once, and determining to meet it unflinchingly he replied that "he had concluded to drink water for a while, and see what that would do; much was said nowadays about coffee being injurious, and he presumed it was."
"There's something on your mind," she said, observing his abstraction. "Have you had another dunning letter, or what?"
Aunt Eunice had made a commencement, and in his usual impulsive way Hugh began by asking if "she ever knew him tell a lie?"
No, Aunt Eunice never did. Nobody ever did, bad as some folks thought him.
"Do they think me very bad?" and Hugh spoke so mournfully that Aunt Eunice tried to apologize.
"She didn't mean anything, only folks sometimes said he was cross and rough, and—and—"
"Stingy," he suggested, supplying the word she hated to say.
Yes, that was what Ellen Tiffton said, because he refused to go to the Ladies' Fair, where he was sure to have his pockets picked. But, law, she wasn't worth minding, if she was Colonel Tiffton's girl, and going to have a big party one week from the next Monday. Had Hugh heard of it?
Hugh believed Ad said something about it yesterday, but he paid no attention, for, of course, he should not go even if he were invited, as he had nothing fit to wear.
"But why did you ask if I ever knew you tell a lie?" Aunt Eunice said, and then in a low tone, as if afraid the walls might hear, Hugh told the whole story of Adah.
"'Twas a mighty mean trick, I know," he said, as he saw Aunt Eunice's look of horror when he confessed the part he had had in wronging the poor girl, "but, Aunt Eunice, that villain coaxed me into drinking wine, which you know I never use, and I think now he must have drugged it, for I remember a strange feeling in my head, a feeling not like drunkenness, for I knew perfectly well what was transpiring around me, and only felt a don't-care-a-tive-ness which kept me silent when I should have spoken. She has come to me at last. She believes God sent her, and if He did He'll help me take care of her. I shall not turn her off."
"But, Hugh," and Aunt Eunice spoke earnestly, "you cannot afford the expense. Think twice before you commit yourself."
"I have thought twice, the last time just as I did the first. Adah shall stay, and I want you to take her. You need some one these winter nights. There's the room you call mine. Give her that. Will you, Aunt Eunice?" and Hugh wound his arm around Aunt Eunice's ample waist, while he pleaded for Adah Hastings.
Aunt Eunice was soon won over, as Hugh knew she would be, and it was settled that she should come that very day, if possible.
"Look, the sky is clearing," and he pointed to the sunshine streaming through the window.
"We'll have her room fixed before I go," and with his own hands Hugh split and prepared the wood which was to kindle Adah's fire, then with Aunt Eunice's help sundry changes were made in the arrangement of the rather meager furniture, which never seemed so meager to Hugh as when he looked at it with Adah's eyes and wondered how she'd like it.
"Oh, I wish I were rich," he sighed mentally, and taking out his well-worn purse he carefully counted its contents.
Aunt Eunice, who had stepped out for a moment, reappeared, bringing a counterpane and towel, one of which was spread upon the bed, while the other covered the old pine stand, marred and stained with ink and tallow, the result of Hugh's own carelessness.
"What a heap of difference that table cloth and pocket handkerchief do make," was Hugh's man-like remark, his face brightening with the improved appearance of things, and his big heart grew warm with the thought that he might keep his twenty-five dollars and Adah be comfortable still.
"Ad may pick Adah's eyes out before I get home," was his laughing remark as he vaulted into his saddle and dashed off across the fields, where, beneath the warm Kentucky sun, the snow was already beginning to soften.
Breakfast had been rather late at Spring Bank that morning, for the strangers had required some care, and Miss 'Lina was sipping her coffee rather ill-naturedly when a note was handed her, and instantly her mood was changed.
"Splendid, mother!" she exclaimed, glancing at the tiny, three-cornered thing; "an invitation to Ellen Tiffton's party. I was half afraid she would leave me out after Hugh's refusal to attend the Ladies' Fair, or buy a ticket for her lottery. It was only ten dollars either, and Mr. Harney spent all of forty,
