t the trail at once, and had been
riding all night looking for his lost wife. Then he made for Percy's,
woke him up, and discovered her placidly snoring under a wagon-box. He
didn't even smile at this. He was very tired and very silent. I thought,
for a moment, that I saw distrust on Dinky-Dunk's face, for the first
time. But he has said nothing. I hated to see him go out to work, when
we got home, but he refused to take a nap at noon, as I wanted him to.
So to-night, when he came in for his supper, I had the birthday cake
duly decked and the presents all out.

But his enthusiasm was forced, and all during the meal he showed a
tendency to be absent-minded. I had no explanations to make, so I made
none. But I noticed that he put on his old slippers. I thought he had
done it deliberately.

"You don't seem to mellow with age," I announced, with my eyebrows up.
He flushed at that, quite plainly. Then he reached over and took hold of
my hand. But he did it only with an effort, and after some tremendous
inward struggle which was not altogether flattering to me.

"Please take your hand away so I can reach the dish-towel," I told him.
And the hand went away like a shot. After I'd finished my work I got out
my George Meredith and read _Modern Love_. Dinky-Dunk did not come to
bed until late. I was awake when he came, but I didn't let him know it.

_Sunday the Twenty-ninth_

I haven't felt much like writing this last week. I scarcely know why. I
think it's because Dinky-Dunk is on his dignity. He's getting thin, by
the way. His cheek-bones show and his Adam's apple sticks out. He's
worried about his land payments, and I tell him he'd be happier with a
half-section. But Dinky-Dunk wants wealth. And I can't help him much.
I'm afraid I'm an encumbrance. And the stars make me lonely, and the
prairie wind sometimes gives me the willies! And winter is coming.

I'm afraid I'm out of my setting, as badly out of it as Percival Benson
is. It wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, if I'd never seen such lovely
corners of the world, before coming out here to be a dot on the
wilderness. If I'd never had that heavenly summer at Fiesole, and those
months with you at Corfu, and that winter in Rome with poor dear dead
Katrinka! Sometimes I think of the nights we used to look out over
Paris, from the roof above 'Tite Daneau's studio. And sometimes I think
of the Pincio, with the band playing, and the carriages flashing, and
the officers in u