clarity, but it was not with these that her thoughts were busied; the
remark which the younger lady had made at the circus just before Jim
rode toward the exit-flap of the curtain had returned and could not be
banished from her mind:

"Didn't he look like Jimmie Abbott?"

Her companion had told the girl that his name was Botts, but beyond
that, and the fact that he was on the way to New York, he had vouchsafed
no further information about himself, nor had Lou asked. She could not
understand why his journey was hedged about with so many silly rules,
nor why he chose to obey them; that was his affair, and he was just a
part of this wonderful adventure which had started with her departure
from the Hess farm.

Yet away down in her heart was a little hurt feeling for which she could
not have assigned a cause even to herself. Of course she trusted him,
and he would not have lied to her, but could there really be another
"Jim" in the world who looked quite like him, and whose name was so
nearly the same?

She had sensed instinctively, and the more clearly perhaps because of
her lack of worldly experience, that he was different, not only from
herself, but from all whom they had encountered upon their journey, yet
could he really be that grand young lady's "Jimmie," after all?

As she stepped aside to lift the basket into which the sodden garments
had fallen from the wringer, her foot chanced to crunch upon something
that yielded with a crisp rustle, and she glanced down. It was the
little red note-book which she had seen in Jim's overall-pocket when he
came from the barn; it must have fallen out as he crossed the porch to
go to the hay-field.

It had opened, and the front cover was pressed back, with the stamp of
her heel, showing plainly upon the first page, and as she stooped slowly
and picked it up Lou could not help reading the three words which were
written across it in a bold, characteristic hand:

JAMES TARRISFORD ABBOTT

There was something else, an address, no doubt, written below, but Lou
closed the book quickly and dropped it upon a near-by bench, as though
it burned her fingers. For a moment she stood very still with her eyes
closed and her little water-shriveled hands tightly interlocked, and in
that instant of time the happy, careless co-adventurer of the last two
marvelous days vanished, and in his place there appeared a stranger, a
man of the world, in which that young lady of th