nd studying each one after he had
taken it in his hand. He was some time in finding the last one, a long
straggling branch which had most of its leaves and berries at the tip,
and she noticed that as he came back to the auto he was arranging them
deftly and with a critical eye. When he handed them in to her they
formed a carefully arranged and graceful composition. It was a new and
an unexpected side of him, and it softened considerably the amused
regard in which she had been holding him.

"They are beautifully arranged," she commented, as he stopped for a
moment to brush the dust from his shoes in the tall grass by the
roadside.

"Do you think so?" he delightedly inquired. "You ought to see my kid
brother make up bouquets of goldenrod and such things. He seems to
have a natural artistic gift."

She bent on his averted head a wondering glance, and she reflected that
often this "hustler" must be misunderstood.

"You have aroused in me quite a curiosity to meet this paragon of a
brother," she remarked. "He must be well-nigh perfection."

"He is," replied Sam instantly, turning to her very earnest eyes. "He
hasn't a flaw in him any place."

She smiled musingly as she surveyed the group of branches she held in
her hand.

"It is a pity these leaves will wither in so short a time," she said.

"Yes," he admitted; "but even if we have to throw them away before we
get back to the hotel, their beauty will give us pleasure for an hour;
and the tree won't miss them. See, it seems as perfect as ever."

"It wouldn't if everybody took the same liberties with it that you
did," she remarked, glancing back at the tree.

Sam had climbed in the car and had slammed the door shut, but any reply
he might have made was prevented by a hail from the woods above them at
the other side of the road, and a man came scrambling down from the
hillside path.

"Why, it's Mr. Princeman!" exclaimed the girl in pleased surprise.
"Think of finding you wandering about, all alone in the woods here."

"I wasn't wandering about," he protested as he came up to the machine
and shook hands with Miss Josephine. "I was headed directly for Hollis
Creek Inn. Your brother wrote me that you were expected to arrive
there yesterday evening, and I was dropping over to call on you right
away this morning. I see, however, that I was not quite prompt enough.
You're selfish, Mr. Turner. You knew I was going over to Hollis Creek,
and you might have inv