that he was courting Mary Asbury, he would have blushed with alarm. Perhaps he would have left The Cedars and gone to the old tavern again. Who knows? Young men will do very desperate things at certain stages of their checkered careers.
It was the old story with its own particular variations. Mary loved Laban, and was too shy to know what she was about. Laban loved Mary, and never discovered it until the disease had become epidemic in his system, and spread over his heart and mind in every direction. Neither one of them discovered it. It was a beautiful dream, too good to be true, too sweet to last. Finally the discovery was made by old Aunt Mimy, the cook, who had never seen Mary and Laban together. The affair, if it can be called by so imposing a name, had been going on a year or more, and Mary was past seventeen, when one afternoon the train failed to arrive on time. The afternoon wore into evening, and still the train did not come. Mary had the habit of sitting in the kitchen with Aunt Mimy when anything troubled her, and on this particular afternoon, after waiting an hour for the train, she went to her old seat near the window.
