The Night Riders

ass into the kitchen of the toll-house and fell in a checkered band acr

le-royal colors of the season-was given it by a bunch of autumn flowers

on, for the mother was a sharp-featured, rather untidy-looking woman, on whom the burden of hard work and poverty had laid certain harsh lines

auburn hair, gathered in a large, loose coil, that rested low upon her neck, and also accentuated the clear,

he breakfast Mrs. Brown looked up suddenly, her cup of coffee

alf cents in town. Count what's stored away in the big gourd

ooking up from her plate. "Joe's limpin

ive you a seat. The Squire may be along soon." A

dden determination. "It's cool and pl

ross furtively to wh

," she said, plaintively, a few moments later, as i

ol!" declared S

re somethin' of a young one!

pretty shoulders, and soon afterward got up and began to

sive tone, as a sort of balm offering to the girl's wounded feelings. She placed her cup and saucer in her pla

rgumentatively, for the subject was a favorite theme with her, and she had rung its changes for the listener's benefit on m

the dish-pan on the table, but she made no answer, though soon the clatter of tins and dishes-perhaps they rattled a little louder

ot the toll-gate in the first place if it hadn't been for his influence, an' now, if you'd only give him any encouragement

attled angrily, but S

d is to marry as well as she can, an' when she neglects to

caught them up, one by one, and began to polish away vigorously, as if the effort aff

might do a hand glass at her toilet. "What o' that? Beauty's only skin deep, an' old age is likely to come to us all sooner or later. It's all the better if he is along in years," she added, with a sudden chuckle and a second furtive glance over

ner's face, which the mother failed t

for your old age-no, indeed, they ain't! The Squire's mighty well fixed; he's got a

looks like a ha'nted barn stuck back amongst them cedar trees down in the hollow. No wonder his firs

oneliness hung about the spot. The house, hopelessly ugly and angular, was set far back from the road in the midst of a large ya

ing ruthlessly into her daughter's musings. "Besides, a spry young girl can p

y was about as poor as Job's turkey when we went to school together, an' many's the time

omew Rice, an' now she rides around in her own kerridge an' pair, mind you, an' no prouder woman ever lived t

't in the least mind goin' to the expense of paintin' an' fixin' up the place till you w

l you wouldn't know him, either, before I'd even

while, if she only had a mind to do so," suggested Mrs. Brown, in subtly persuasive to

," insisted Sally, with a sudden ring of r

n't been so headstrong an' wild. You know the S

things," cor

, in hopeful prediction. "He ain't a man to give up

uggested her daughter, with a little

oyed for resentful chiding. "His nephew's at the bottom of it all, an' you seem ready an' willin' to throw away a good chance of a nice, comfortable home an' deprive me