After breakfast Charles went out into the street. It was a clear day, and the mountains in the distance, the near-by green hills, the blue sky, appealed to him. His morbid mood of the night before was gone. Life seemed to promise something to him that had not been within his reach since the hopeful days of his boyhood. He wondered if he was already becoming identified with a locality which he could regard as a permanent home. He smiled as he asked himself who would look for him here among these buried-alive people. How simple and quaint the farmers looked as they slowly moved about their produce-wagons in front of the stores of general merchandise! How amusing their drawling dialect as they priced their cotton, potatoes, chickens, and garden truck! The sign of Sandow & Lincoln\'s store hung across the sidewalk in front of him. He turned in there. A number of country women with their children stood along the counters on both sides of the narrow room, all being waited on by coatless clerks. A clerk approached Charles.

"Something to-day, sir?" he asked.

Charles told him what he wanted, and the clerk nodded. "Oh yes!" he said, "Miss Mary was talking about you just now. She said you might come in, but she wasn\'t at all sure. She is in the grocery department, next door. She said tell you to wait back in the rear, if you came. You will find a seat there. I\'ll tell her when she comes in. No, Mrs. Spriggs, we\'ve quit handling nails." This to a gaunt young woman at his elbow, with a baby on her arm. "When the new hardware started up we agreed to go out of that line and sold \'em our stock. It is right across the street. You can\'t miss it."

Charles went back to the rear of the long room and took one of the chairs. A country girl came with several pairs of shoes in her arms, and sat down near him to try them on. It amused him to note the way she pulled them on over her coarse stockings, and stood up on a piece of brown paper to prevent any scratching of the soles. Finally she made a selection, and went back with all the shoes in her arms. There was a long table holding suits of clothing against the wall, and a young farmer came back and began to pull out some of the coats and examine them.

Catching Charles\'s glance, he smiled. "Most of \'em moth-eaten," he said, dryly. "They\'ve had \'em in stock ever since the war—mildewed till they smell as musty as rotting hay in a damp stack. Show feller, eh?"

"I was," Charles admitted.

"I heard the clerk talking about you just now," the man went on. "That was a good show, if I\'m any judge. The best clown I think I ever saw. How any mortal man can think up funny things and fire \'em back as quick, first shot out of the box, as that feller did in answering questions beats me."

Charles explained that both the questions and replies had been in use a long time, and the farmer stared in wonder.

"You don\'t mean it," he said. "That sorter spoils it, don\'t it? Well, every man to his own line, I reckon."

He might have asked more questions, but Miss Rowland was approaching from the front. As he rose to his feet Charles was quite unprepared for what he saw. He had pictured her as an elderly spinster, somewhat soured by work, misfortune, and family cares, but here was a graceful young girl hardly past eighteen, with a smiling, good-humored face that was quite pretty. She was slight and tall; she had small hands and feet, hazel eyes, and a splendid head of golden-brown hair.

"I think you are Mr. Brown," she began, smiling sweetly. "Mr. Sam Lee said he would speak to you about what I want."

"He sent me here," Charles answered. For the first time since his exile he was conscious of the return of his old social manner in the presence of a lady, and yet he knew there was much that was incongruous in it, dressed as he was in soiled and shabby clothing.

"I certainly am glad you came," she said, in that round, deep and musical voice which somehow held such charm for his ears. "I tell you I am sick and tired of trying to get help, and our cotton and corn are being choked to death by weeds. If you don\'t come I don\'t know what I\'ll do."

"I am perfectly willing," he half stammered, under the delectable thrall of her eyes and appealing mien of utter helplessness, "but I must be frank. I am ignorant of field work. My idea was to offer my help to some farmer who would be patient with me till I got the hang of it. Of course, I could not expect wages till—till—"

"Oh," she broke in, with a rippling laugh, "you wouldn\'t have any trouble in that respect! A child can cut out weeds with a hoe. I did it when I was a tiny thing. All you have to learn is the difference between corn and cotton and weeds. I can show you that in a minute. Oh, if that is all, we can fix that!"

"That is the only thing I can think of," Charles answered. "I am tired of the roving life I\'ve been leading with the circus and I want to locate somewhere permanently."

"Then we may as well talk about the—the wages," the girl said. "The price usually paid is two dollars a day for six days in the week, and board thrown in. How would that suit you?"

"I am only afraid I won\'t earn it—at first, anyway," Charles said. "I think I\'d better let you pay me according to what I am worth. Money is really not my chief object. I only want a place to live. It happens that I am all alone in the world—no kin or close friends."

"Oh," Mary cried, softly, "that is sad—very, very sad. I sometimes think that all my troubles come from having so many dear ones to bother about, but it must be worse not to have any at all. What a strange life you must have been leading! And you—you"—she hesitated, and then went on, frankly—"you seem to be of a sensitive nature. And yet, from what I\'ve always heard of showmen—"

Seeing that she had paused, he prompted her. "You were saying—"

"More than I have any right to say on such a short acquaintance," she replied, coloring prettily, "but I\'ll finish. Of course, we don\'t know about such things, but we have the impression that showmen are rough and uneducated; but you are quite the opposite."

"There are all classes among the workers about a circus," he said—"good, bad, and indifferent."

"Well," she smiled, "let\'s get back to business. When can you come? We live five miles out, at the foot of the mountains, and any one can direct you to our plantation—I say \'plantation,\' because it use............