Gay was talking as they
approached the blazed pine, which stood out sinister and black against
the afterglow, and it was only when Molly cried out sharply that he saw
Blossom's face looking at them again over the tiger lilies.
"Why, what in the deuce!" he exclaimed, not in anger, but in amazement.
"Blossom, wait for me!" called Molly, and would have slipped to the
ground had not Gay reached out and held her in the saddle.
Then the figure of Blossom, which had waited there evidently since their
first passing, vanished like an apparition into the grey twilight.
The pallid face floated from them through the grape-scented mist, and
Molly's call brought no answer except the cry of a whip-poor-will from
the thicket.
CHAPTER XII
ONE OF LOVE'S VICTIMS
A week later Jim Halloween stopped with a bit of news at Bottom's
Ordinary, where old Adam Doolittle dozed under the mulberry tree in a
rush chair which had been brought over in his son's oxcart.
"Have you all heard that our Mr. Mullen has accepted a call to larger
fields?" he inquired, "an' that Judy Revercomb has gone clean daft
because he's going to leave us?"
"She didn't have far to go," observed Mrs.
Pages:
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489