, had he told me
that she was beautiful, and even rich and good, all our boyish pledges
would have been swept aside, and I should have cheered him on. But I
had seen her. She had laughed with me. Somehow we had understood each
other. And now I cared not so much what he felt for her as how she
looked on him. For once in our lives Tim and I were fencing.

"She's pretty, Tim," said I, "and rich, you say?"

"Mary has several thousand dollars," he answered. "Besides that,
she'll get all old man Warden has to leave, and that's a pretty pile."

"Little wonder she wears that Dunkard gown," said I with the faintest
sneer.

It angered Tim.

"That's not fair," he cried. "She's not that kind. Luther Warden is
all she has of kin, and if it makes him any happier to see her togged
out in that gawky Dunkard gown-----"

"Gawky?" said I. "Why, man, on a woman like that a plain dress is
simply quaint. She looks like an old Dutch picture. You must not let
her change it."

The insinuation of his authority made Tim pound the table with his
pipe. He was striving to be angry, but I knew what that furious flush
of his face meant. He tried to conceal it by smoking again, but ended
in a laugh.

"Oh, nonsense!" he said. Then he laughed again.

"Tell me," I went on, following up my advantage, "when is she coming
here, or when are you going to move up there?"

My brother recovered his composure.

"It's all silly, Mark. There is no chance of a girl like that settling
down here with a clumsy fellow like me--a fellow who doesn't know
anything, who's never been anywhere, who's never seen anything. Why,
she's travelled; she's from Kansas; she's lived in big cities. This is
nothing but a lark for her. She'll go away some day, and she'll leave
us here, grubbing away on our bit of a farm and spending our savings on
powder and shot--until we get to the happy hunting grounds."

Tim laughed mournfully. "I've been just a little foolish," he went on,
"but I couldn't help it, Mark. It doesn't amount to anything; it never
did and never will, and now that you're here and the rabbit season will
soon be in, we'll have other things to think of. But you must remember
I'm not the only man in the world who's been a bit of a fool in his
time."

"No," said I. "May I be spared myself, but see here, Tim, how does it
feel?"

"How does what feel?" snapped Tim.

"To be in love the way you are," I answered.

"Oh!" he exclaimed.

He h