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Brice’s revulsion of sentiment was so complete, and the gratitude that beamed in his eyes was so sincere, that Mr. Tarbox hardly needed the profuse apologies which broke from him. “Forgive me!” he continued to stammer, “I have wronged you, wronged HER–everybody. But as you know, Mr. Tarbox, how I have felt over this, how deeply–how passionately”–

“It DOES make a man loony sometimes,” said Mr. Tarbox, relaxing into demure dryness again, “so I reckon you DID! Mebbe she reckoned so, too, for she asked me to give you the handkercher I sent ye. It looked as if she’d bin doin’ some fancy work on it.”

Brice glanced quickly at Mr. Tarbox’s face. It was stolid and imperturbable. She had evidently kept the secret of what passed in the hollow to herself. For the first time he looked around the room curiously. “I didn’t know you were a land agent before,” he said.

“No more I was! All that kem out o’ that paragraph, Mr. Brice. That man Heckshill, who was so mighty perlite that night, wrote to me afterwards that he didn’t know my name till he’d seed that paragraph, and he wanted to know ef, ez a ‘well-known citizen,’ I could recommend him some timber lands. I recommended him half o’ my own quarter section, and he took it. He’s puttin’ up a mill thar, and that’s another reason why we want peace and quietness up thar. I’m tryin’ (betwixt and between us, Mr. Brice) to get Harry to cl’ar out and sell his rights in the valley and the water power on the Fork to Heckshill and me. I’m opening a business here.”

“Then you’ve left Mrs. Tarbox with Miss Flora in your cabin while you attend to business here,” said Brice tentatively.

“Not exactly, Mr. Brice. The old woman thought it a good chance to come to ‘Frisco and put Flo in one o’ them Catholic convent schools–that asks no questions whar the raw logs come from, and turns ’em out first-class plank all round. You foller me, Mr. Brice? But Mrs. Tarbox is jest in the next room, and would admire to tell ye all this–and I’ll go in and send her to you.” And with a patronizing wave of the hand, Mr. Tarbox complacently disappeared in the hall.

Mr. Brice was not sorry to be left to himself in his utter bewilderment! Flo, separated from her detrimental uncle, and placed in a convent school! Tarbox, the obscure pioneer, a shrewd speculator emerging into success, and taking the uncle’s place! And all this within that month which he had wasted with absurd repinings. How feeble seemed his own adventure and advancement; how even ludicrous his pretensions to any patronage and superiority. How this common backwoodsman had set him in his place as easily as SHE had evaded the advances of the journalist and Heckshill! They had taught him a lesson; perhaps even the sending back of his handkerchief was part of it! His heart grew heavy; he walked to the window and gazed out with a long sigh.

A light laugh, that might have been an echo of the one which had attracted him that night in Tarbox’s cabin, fell upon his ear. He turned quickly to meet Flora Dimwood’s laughing eyes shining upon him as she stood in the doorway.

Many a time during that month he had thought of this meeting–had imagined what it would be like–what would be his manner towards her–what would be her greeting, and what they would say. He would be cold, gentle, formal, gallant, gay, sad, trustful, reproachful, even as the moods in which he thought of her came to his foolish brain. He would always begin with respectful seriousness, or a frankness equal to her own, but never, never again would he offend as he had offended under the buckeyes! And now, with her pretty face shining upon him, all his plans, his speeches, his preparations vanished, and left him dumb. Yet he moved towards her with a brief articulate something on his lips,–something between a laugh and a sigh,–but that really was a kiss, and–in point of fact–promptly folded her in his arms.