iousness
in her pretty face as she replied, passing her hand lightly through his
hair,--

"Oh, Jim? I've packed him off!"

"Packed him off!" echoed Clarence, slightly astonished.

"Yes, to Fair Plains, full tilt after your wife's buggy. You see,
Clarence, after the old cat--that's your wife, please--left, I wanted to
make sure she had gone, and wasn't hangin' round to lead you off again
with your leg tied to her apron string like a chicken's! No! I said to
Jim, 'Just you ride after her until you see she's safe and sound in
the down coach from Fair Plains without her knowin' it, and if she's
inclined to hang back or wobble any, you post back here and let me
know!' I told him I would stay and look after you to see you didn't bolt
too!" She laughed, and then added, "But I didn't think I should
fall into the old ways so soon, and have such a nice time. Did you,
Clarence?"

She looked so irresponsible, sitting there with her face near his,
and so childishly, or perhaps thoughtlessly, happy, that he could only
admire her levity, and even the slight shock that her flippant allusion
to his wife had given him seemed to him only a weakness of his own.
After all, was not hers the true philosophy? Why should not these bright
eyes see things more clearly than his own? Nevertheless, with his eyes
still fixed upon them, he continued,--

"And Jim was willing to go?"

She stopped, with her fingers still lifting a lock of his hair. "Why,
yes, you silly--why shouldn't he? I'd like to see him refuse. Why, Lord!
Jim will do anything I ask him." She put down the lock of hair, and
suddenly looking full into his eyes, said, "That's just the difference
between him and me, and you and--that woman!"

"Then you love him!"

"About as much as you love her," she said, with an unaffected laugh;
"only he don't wind me around his finger."

No doubt she was right for all her thoughtlessness, and yet he was going
to fight about that woman to-morrow! No--he forgot; he was going to
fight Captain Pinckney because he was like her!

Susy had put her finger on the crease between his brows which this
supposition had made, and tried to rub it out.

"You know it as well as I do, Clarence," she said, with a pretty
wrinkling of her own brows, which was her nearest approach to
thoughtfulness. "You know you never really liked her, only you thought
her ways were grander and more proper than mine, and you know you were
always a little bit of a snob and a