oat of your places?"

"He may."

"And Mr. Mawch takes the risk of that jost fo' a principle?"

"I reckon."

"And you do it jost fo' an ahdeal?"

"It won't do to own it. I must have my little axe to grind, somewhere."

"Well, men awe splendid," sighed the girl. "Ah will say it."

"Oh, they're not so much better than women," said Fulkerson, with a
nervous jocosity. "I guess March would have backed down if it hadn't
been for his wife. She was as hot as pepper about it, and you could see
that she would have sacrificed all her husband's relations sooner than
let him back down an inch from the stand he had taken. It's pretty easy
for a man to stick to a principle if he has a woman to stand by him. But
when you come to play it alone--"

"Mr. Fulkerson," said the girl, solemnly, "Ah will stand bah you in
this, if all the woald tones against you." The tears came into her eyes,
and she put out her hand to him.

"You will?" he shouted, in a rapture. "In every way--and always--as long
as you live? Do you mean it?" He had caught her hand to his breast and
was grappling it tight there and drawing her to him.

The changing emotions chased one another through her heart and over her
face: dismay, shame, pride, tenderness. "You don't believe," she said,
hoarsely, "that Ah meant that?"

"No, but I hope you do mean it; for if you don't, nothing else means
anything."

There was no space, there was only a point of wavering. "Ah do mean it."

When they lifted their eyes from each other again it was half-past ten.
"No' you most go," she said.

"But the colonel--our fate?"

"The co'nel is often oat late, and Ah'm not afraid of ouah fate, no'
that we've taken it into ouah own hands." She looked at him with dewy
eyes of trust, of inspiration.

"Oh, it's going to come out all right," he said. "It can't come out
wrong now, no matter what happens. But who'd have thought it, when I
came into this house, in such a state of sin and misery, half an hour
ago--"

"Three houahs and a half ago!" she said. "No! you most jost go. Ah'm
tahed to death. Good-night. You can come in the mawning to see-papa."
She opened the door and pushed him out with enrapturing violence, and he
ran laughing down the steps into her father's arms.

"Why, colonel! I was just going up to meet you." He had really thought
he would walk off his exultation in that direction.

"I am very sorry to say, Mr. Fulkerson," the colonel began, gravely,
"that Mr. Dryfoos