to her
mother. As it was, she permitted her mother to explain as best she
might to Hugh Douglas. Her courage did not reach to that long,
uncompromising upper lip of her father's.

She had folded her prettiest dress carefully into a flat bundle, had
thrown it out of her window and left the house in her riding clothes.
There was a saddle horse, Jamie, a Roman-nosed bay of uncertain temper
and a high, rocking gait, which she sometimes used for long trips. She
saddled him now and hurried away, thankful to be gone with her
package and her guilty conscience before her father arrived. She was
very good friends with the Kennedys, at the section house. If there
was a dance within forty miles, the Kennedys might be counted upon to
attend; and that is how Mary Hope arrived at the schoolhouse with a
load from Jumpoff. She had seen Lance standing near the door, and
Lance had paid no attention to her, but had left an AJ man to claim
the first two-step. Wherefore Lance walked straight into trouble when
he went to Mary Hope and asked for the next dance with her.

"So sorry--it's promised already," said Mary Hope, in her primmest
tone.

"There's a dance after the next one," he hinted, looking down from his
more-than-six feet at her where she sat wedged between Mrs. Boyle and
Jennie Miller.

"So sorry--but I think that one is promised also," said Mary Hope.

Lance drew a corner of his lip between his teeth, let it go and lifted
his eyebrows whimsically at Jennie Miller, whom he had once heard
playing on her organ, and whom he had detested ever since with an
unreasoning animosity born solely of her musical inability and her
long neck that had on its side a brown mole with three coarse hairs in
it.

"If Miss Douglas has two dances engaged in advance, it's quite
hopeless to hope for a dance with Miss Miller," he said, maliciously
drawing the sentence through certain vibrant tones which experience
had taught him had a certain pleasing effect upon persons. "Or is it
hopeless? Are you engaged for every dance to-night, Miss Miller? And
if you are, please may I stand beside you while you eat a sandwich at
midnight?"

Jennie Miller giggled. "I ain't as popular as all that," she retorted,
glancing at Mary Hope, sitting very straight and pretty beside her.
"And if I was, I don't go and promise everybody that asks. I might
want to change my mind afterwards if some other fellow comes along I
liked better--and I've saw too many fights start