fter all. For now I think of it, a
chuckle-headed fellow, of whom a moment ago I inquired the way to your
house, told me I'd better ask the young man and young woman who were
'philandering through the wheat' yonder. Suppose we look for them. From
what I've heard of Bent he's too much wrapped up in his inventions for
flirtation, but it would be a good joke to stumble upon them."

Mrs. Randolph's eyes sparkled with a mingling of gratified malice and
undisguised contempt for the fatuous father beside her. But before she
could accept or decline the challenge, it had become useless. A murmur
of youthful voices struck her ear, and she suddenly stood upright and
transfixed in the carriage. For lounging down slowly towards them out
of the dim green aisles of the arbored wheat, lost in themselves and the
shimmering veil of their seclusion, came the engineer, Thomas Bent, and
on his arm, gazing ingenuously into his face, the figure of Adele,--her
own perfect daughter.

"I don't think, my dear," said Mr. Mallory, as the anxious Rose flew
into his arms on his return to San Jose, a few hours later, "that it
will be necessary for you to go back again to Major Randolph's before we
leave. I have said 'Good-by' for you and thanked them, and your trunks
are packed and will be sent here. The fact is, my dear, you see this
affair of the earthquake and the disaster to the artesian well have
upset all their arrangements, and I am afraid that my little girl would
be only in their way just now."

"And you have seen Mr. Dawson--and you know why he sent for you?" asked
the young girl, with nervous eagerness.

"Ah, yes," said Mr. Mallory thoughtfully, "THAT was really important.
You see, my child," he continued, taking her hand in one of his own and
patting the back of it gently with the other, "we think, Dawson and I,
of taking over the major's ranch and incorporating it with the Excelsior
in one, to be worked on shares like the Excelsior; and as Mrs. Randolph
is very anxious to return to the Atlantic States with her children, it
is quite possible. Mrs. Randolph, as you have possibly noticed," Mr.
Mallory went on, still patting his daughter's hand, "does not feel
entirely at home here, and will consequently leave the major free to
rearrange, by himself, the ranch on the new basis. In fact, as the
change must be made before the crops come in, she talks of going next
week. But if you like the place, Rose, I've no doubt the major and
Dawson w