and settle it," she urged. "Go quick, before some one
else gets her. Write to her. Tell her to come right up. Send her a
telegram. Seems as though I can't wait another week."

Her urgency made me laugh, even while I perceived the pathos of it. "I
can't bring her to you, mother, till she is willing to come as a
bride--but she's thinking about it, and I am going back next week to get
my answer. Be patient a little while longer. I promise you the whole
question will be settled soon, and I _hope_ it will be settled our way.
Zulime seems to like me."

Dear old mother! Her stammering, tremulous utterance made me smile and
it made me weep. She was growing old prematurely, and the need of haste
was urgent. "If I can possibly persuade her to come," I added very
gravely, "I'll fetch her home to eat Thanksgiving dinner with you."

My tone, rather than my words, silenced her, and gave her a measure of
content, although she was childishly impatient of even a day's delay.

All that week I alternately hoped and doubted, assembling all the items
on the credit side of my ledger, and at last a letter came in which
Zulime indicated that she wished to see me. "I am still undecided," she
said, "but you may come." I left at once for the camp, feeling that her
confession of indecision was in my favor.

Lorado was not markedly favorable to me as a brother-in-law. He liked me
and respected me as a friend, but as a suitor for the hand of his
sister--well, that was another and far more serious matter.

The camp "Equipage" met me at the station, and I consented to ride in it
as far as the Heckman gate, hoping that Zulime would be there to welcome
me. In this I was not disappointed, and something in her face and the
firm clasp of her hand reassured me.

For nearly a week, in the midst of the most glorious October landscape,
surrounded by the scarlet and gold and crimson branches of the maples
and the deep-reds and bronze-greens of the oaks, she and I walked and
rode and boated in almost constant companionship. Idyllic days! Days of
a quality I had lost all hope of ever again reliving. Days of quiet
happiness and almost perfect content, for on an afternoon of dreamlike
beauty, in a glade radiant with hazy golden sunshine and odorous with
the ripening leaves, she spoke the all-important words which joined her
future life with mine.

We were seated at the moment on our favorite bank, under a tall oak
tree, gorgeous as a sunset cloud, and as s