going to buy a walnut grove. You ought
never to let slip anything you happen to know of any man's business
plans."

"Oh!" she said blankly.

Having voiced his straightforward objection, and delivered his simple
but direct lesson, Mr. Turner turned as decisively to other matters.

"Son," he asked, leaning over toward the chauffeur, "are there any
speed limit laws on these roads?"

"None that I know of," replied the boy.

"Then cut her loose. Do you object to fast driving, Miss Stevens?"

"Not at all," she told him, either much chastened by the late rebuke or
much amused by it. She could scarcely tell which, as yet. "I don't
particularly long for a broken neck, but I never can feel that my time
has come."

"It hasn't," returned Sam. "Let's see your palm," and taking her hand
he held it up before him. It was a small hand that he saw, and most
gracefully formed, but a strong one, too, and Sam Turner had an
extremely quick and critical eye for both strength and beauty. "You
are going to live to be a gray-haired grandmother," he announced after
an inspection of her pink palm, "and live happily all your life."

It was noteworthy that no matter what his impulse may have been he did
not hold her hand overly long, nor subject it to undue warmth of
pressure, but restored it gently to her lap. She was remarking upon
this herself as she took that same hand and passed its tapering fingers
deftly among the twigs of the tree-bouquet, arranging a leaf here and a
berry there.

CHAPTER IV

A LITTLE VACATION PASTIME IN WHICH GREEK MEETS GREEK

Old man Gifford was not at home in his squat, low-roofed farm-house,
but a woman shaped like a pyramid of diminishing pumpkins directed them
down through the grove to the corn patch. It was necessary to lift
strenuously upon the sagging end of a squeaky old gate, and scrape it
across gulleys, to get the automobile into the narrow, deeply-rutted
road, and with a mind fearful of tires the chauffeur wheeled down
through the grove quite slowly, a slowness for which Sam was duly
grateful, since it allowed him to take a careful appraisement of the
walnut trees, interspersed with occasional oaks, which bordered both
sides of their path. They were tall, thick, straight-trunked trees,
from amongst which the underbrush had been carefully cut away. It was
a joy to his now vandal soul, this grove, and already he could see
those majestic trunks, after having been sawed with as littl