plain, blunt "yes" and read his answer.

"I shall go home at once, get Mother and Connie, follow you, and
demand possession of my property. I shall win the day. Have no fear.
Till then, good-bye, my darling."

"Marguerite," said Mrs. Saxby at my elbow, "it is time to go."

I got up obediently. Aunt Martha was as grim and uncompromising as
ever, and Mrs. Saxby looked like a chief mourner, but do you suppose I
cared? I dropped behind them just once before we left the shore. I
knew he was watching me and I waved my hand.

I suppose I am really engaged to Francis Shelmardine. But was there
ever such a funny wooing? And _what_ will Aunt Martha say?

After Many Days

The square, bare front room of the Baxter Station Hotel--so called
because there was no other house in the place to dispute the
title--was filled with men. Some of them were putting up at the hotel
while they worked at the new branch line, and some of them had dropped
in to exchange news and banter while waiting for the mail train.

Gabe Foley, the proprietor, was playing at checkers with one of the
railroad men, but was not too deeply absorbed in the game to take in
all that was said around him. The air was dim with tobacco smoke, and
the brilliant, scarlet geraniums which Mrs. Foley kept in the bay
window looked oddly out of place. Gabe knew all those present except
one man--a stranger who had landed at Baxter Station from the
afternoon freight. Foley's hotel did not boast of a register, and the
stranger did not volunteer any information regarding his name or
business. He had put in the afternoon and early evening strolling
about the village and talking to the men on the branch line. Now he
had come in and ensconced himself in the corner behind the stove,
where he preserved a complete silence.

He had a rather rough face and was flashily dressed. Altogether, Gabe
hardly liked his looks, put as long as a man paid his bill and did not
stir up a row Gabe Foley did not interfere with him.

Three or four farmers from "out Greenvale way" were drawn up by the
stove, discussing the cheese factory sales and various Greenvale
happenings. The stranger appeared to be listening to them intently,
although he took no part in their conversation.

Presently he brought his tilted chair down with a sharp thud. Gabe
Foley had paused in his manipulation of a king to hurl a question at
the Greenvale men.

"Is it true that old man Strong is to be turned out next