ked for every cent of it.

"I'll give you that bright new quarter if you think it is so pretty," he
said, and of course it couldn't have been emotion that cut his voice off
so indistinctly.

"Come on, then, and let me dance for it," I answered. Then myself and
money and mull dress,--that came all the way from New York with a
three-figured bill--I threw into the blue-jeans arms. And out on the
smooth, hard turnpike Sam and I had one glorious fox-trot with only the
surprised mule looking on.

"Bring Pete out at about eleven. Your first pea is due to pod about
noon. No, I must go now or never," said Sam as he shook me off when I
clung and begged for another dance. He climbed up in the wagon. "Good
night," he called.

For a long time I stood and watched him standing bolt upright in the
wagon and clattering away with his great ugly old mule in a lurching
trot; then I went in to the dance. I didn't tell anybody that Sam had
been there, because they would all have been disappointed. The way Sam's
home town loves him and disapproves of his farming is pathetic. Five
miles is a long way for anybody that knows Sam to be separated from him,
at least that is the way I felt as Peter slid and skidded and dipped me
around while he told me how proud he was of my beauty and the lovely and
worthy friends I possessed. He mentioned Julia and Pink and the mules in
detail. I think Peter Vandyne has the most grateful, appreciative,
sympathetic nature I ever encountered, and I told him so as we walked
home across the lawn while the stars were beginning to grow pale and
flicker with no more night to burn.

"My heart is full, full, dear, dearest Betty, with you and--and the
work. The vision becomes clearer," Peter said, with his great dark eyes
looking up at the retreating stars. And as we walked up the steps he
told me another struggle he had thought up for the hero to have with his
conscience about the poor little waiting heroine. The mule story hadn't
done him one bit of good, and I went to bed as cross as two sticks.

"Oh, Samboy! I'm glad you are there and that you are Peter's next of
friends or first or--Good night!" I muttered, as I closed my eyes on my
favorite glimpse of Old Harpeth.

The next morning at about nine-thirty occurred Peter Vandyne's
introduction into real life. He took it gallantly with his head up and
swimming for shore.

The day was one of young May's maiden efforts offered with a soft smile
of tender sunshine a