n I am gone, and if you perish, you
perish."

George walked beside her as the party moved towards the grandstand.
"I've half a mind to go to New York with you, Madge. I came down on
your account."

"It's because you followed me that I'm tired of you, Georgie. If you
go, I'll stay."

She was smiling as she said it. But he did not smile. "Just as you
wish, of course. But you mustn't expect me to come running when you
crook your finger."

"I never expect things, but you'll come."

Perhaps she would not have been so sure if she could have looked into
his mind. The day that Becky had ridden away, hidden by the flaps of
the old surrey, the spark of his somewhat fickle interest had been
lighted, and the glimpse that he had had of her this morning had fanned
the spark into a flame.

"Did you say the old man's name is Bannister?" he asked Oscar as the
Judge's party passed them later on their way to their seats.

"Yes. Judge Bannister. I tried to buy his place before I decided on
Hamilton Hill. But he wouldn't sell. He said he wouldn't have any
place for his stuffed birds."

"Stuffed birds?"

"His hobby is the game birds of Virginia. He has a whole room of them.
I offered him a good price, but I suppose he'd rather starve than take
it."

The Judge's box was just above Oscar Waterman's. Becky, looking up,
saw Dalton's eyes upon her.

"It's the man who came with you on the train," she told Randy.

"What's he wearing a pink coat for?" Randy demanded. "He isn't riding."

"He probably knows that he looks well in it."

"That isn't a reason."

Becky took another look. "He has a head like the bust of Apollo in our
study hall."

"I'd hate to have a head like that."

"Well, you haven't," she told him; "you may hug that thought to
yourself if it is any consolation, Randy."

V

Caroline Paine's boarders sat high up on the grandstand. If the
boarders seem in this book to be spoken of collectively, like the
Chorus in a Greek play, or the sisters and aunts and cousins in
"Pinafore," it is not because they are not individually interesting.
It is because, en masse only, have they any meaning in this history.

Now as they sat on the grandstand, they discerned Mrs. Paine in the
Judge's box. They waved at her, and they waved at Randy, they waved
also at Major Prime. They demanded recognition--some of the more
enthusiastic detached themselves finally from the main group and came
down to visit Caroline.