ou, Thaine. All right. Don't forget, then," Jo heard her say as
she gathered up the reins, and noted that it was her motion and not the
young man's that cut short the interview.

"Leigh is a leech when she has the chance," Jo said jokingly, as the two
sat in the Aydelot buggy at last.

When one has grown up from babyhood the ruling spirit in a neighborhood,
her opinions are to be accepted.

Thaine gave Jo a quick look but said nothing.

"By the way, papa says Jim isn't very well this summer. Says he still
grieves over the farm he lost. Leigh hasn't much ahead of her, nailed down
to a chicken lot and a cow pasture and a garden. I wonder they don't move
to town. She'd get a clerkship, maybe."

Thaine only waited, and Jo ran on.

"I'd never stay in the country a minute if I could get to town. I'll be
glad when papa's elected treasurer, so we can live in Careyville again.
Poor Leigh. Doesn't she look like a drudge?"

Still Thaine was silent.

"Why don't you say something?" Jo demanded, looking coquettishly at him.

"About what?" he asked gravely.

"About Leigh. I don't want to do all the gossiping. Tell me what you think
of her."

"It would take a Cyclopedia Britannica set of volumes to do that," Thaine
replied.

"Oh, be serious and answer my questions," Jo demanded.

"'Doesn't she look like a drudge?' What kind of an answer--information or
just my opinion?"

"Oh, your opinion, of course," Jo said.

"If she looks like a drudge, it's what she is." The young man's eyes were
on his team.

"I thought you liked her," Jo insisted.

"I do," Thaine replied.

"How much, pray?"

"I haven't measured yet."

Thaine Aydelot was by inheritance a handsome young fellow, and as he
turned now to his companion, something in his countenance gave it a
manliness not usual to his happy-go-lucky expression. But the same
unpenetrable something beyond which no one could see was always on his
face when Jo talked of Leigh.

"How much do you like me?" The query was daringly put, but the beauty of
the girl's striking face seemed to warrant anything from her lips, however
daring.

"A tremendous lot, I know that," Thaine replied quickly, and Jo dropped
her eyes and began to chatter of other things.

In the afternoon the cool grove was inviting, and Thaine and Jo loitered
about in careless enjoyment of woodland shadows and wind-dimpled waters
and Sabbath quiet and one another.

"I want father to have a little boathouse over