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 very willing to entertain the guest and soon placed him at his ease. Southern hospitality is so open and frank that a stranger is accepted at his face value till he proves himself undesirable.

Bennet spent the remainder of the day in unpacking his belongings and making himself at home in his surroundings. His mind was happier than it had been for several weeks. As he arranged his clothing on frames provided, and in the cedar chest Mrs. Gorton provided from her linen closet, he could not refrain at intervals from stepping to the window which opened toward the Lauriston house and gaze in the direction of Lida. The great live oak in front of the veranda seemed to wave its branches; Bennet was uncertain whether in a hostile or a friendly manner.

When Lida entered the house she was happier than she had been for weeks, knowing that her lover was near and that she would soon be leaving with him. Her heart was full of plans for the future and elopement. As she crossed the threshold of the door and was on her way to her room, the fiercely blaspheming voice of her father greeted her. She paused to listen. She distinguished three other voices also. Colonel Lauriston was pacing to and fro in the dining room raving as a madman, cursing God, his family, the world and himself. In his raging Lida realized that she was again the cause. She paused in the hallway long enough to hear her brother, Elvin, also angrily speaking to Young John Marley.

"I thought you were a man. Why didn't you kill the