if a whole battery of merriment was fizzling, like a bad fire-cracker, for want of a sufficient degree of explosive force. All this while, Millicent kept her eyes closed. Presently there was a brisk retreat, and then she opened her eyes in time to see Droopy vanishing over the little hill across which she had come to her clay prison. Scarcely was he out of sight when there came to her ears the most boisterous and uproarious laughter she had ever heard; and her cheeks burned with shame and rage.
Her appearance, notwithstanding her distress, was too droll and comical for Droopy to stand, and he had to laugh in spite of himself. He had tried to retreat out of her hearing, but the mirthful paroxysm seized him too quickly. The knowledge that she could hear him checked his laughter speedily, and then he hastened back to her. Aunt Jenkins was forgotten now, and Millicent faced him with a blaze of rage.
"How dare you laugh at me?" she demanded. "I was never so insulted before in my life."
"I'm sorry; bet yer life I'm sorry," he said, earnestly; "I wouldn't 'a' laughed, on'y I run on yer so onexpected, an' it laid me out. Let's see: I must figger on some way o' gittin' ye out o' that."
"Don't trouble yourself," she answered, snappily: "I am in no immediate danger. Go away, and leave me alone. I wouldn't let you touch me for the world."
"Wouldn't ye?" he retorted, in the same tone. There was a decided vein of wickedness in Droopy, when it was properly appealed to; and Millicent had touched the vibrant chord. "So you wouldn't let me touch ye, hey? All right, I won't. I'll jest let ye stay there till that air clay gits up ter yer neck. If you like it, it suits me. I reckon it's as good a way as any ter die."
"Walter will find me, and save me," she faltered.
"A heap he will. He an' Mary am up yender, in the mounting, havin' a good time."
"I don't believe it," she cried. "That coarse girl sent him a note, this morning, in which she apologized for too much forwardness"
"How d'ye know?" he demanded, savagely.
"Because I opened it, myself, and"
"And read it," he added, when she hesitated. "In course they wasn't nothin' coarse 'bout that."
She burst into tears. The woman asserted itself, again.
"You are unkind to me; you are brutal," she moaned. "You pretend to love me, and yet you stand there and triumph over me when I'm in trouble."
Droopy melted.
"I ain't trumpin' over ye. I'm sorry yer in trouble, an' I'll do all I can ter help you out."
"Help me out of this nasty mud, then."
"Will ye marry me, if I do?"
"Papa might not like it, you know."
"Papa be—darned," he grinned, delightedly. But he helped her out.
