called to him.

"Isn't there any one here to meet you, Tom?"

"They don't know I'm coming," he explained. Whereupon she quickly made
room for him, holding the door open. But he hung back.

"I reckon I'd better ride on the box with Unc' Scipio," he suggested.

"I am sure I don't know why you should," she objected.

He told her straight; or at least gave her his own view of it.

"By to-morrow morning everybody in Gordonia and Paradise Valley will
know that I'm home in disgrace. It won't hurt Unc' Scipio any if I'm
seen riding with him."

It was the first time that he had been given to see the Dabney
imperiousness shining star-like in Miss Ardea's slate-blue eyes.

"I wish you to get your hand-bag and ride in here with me," she said,
with the air of one whose wish was law. But when he was sitting opposite
and the carriage door was shut, she smiled companionably across at him
and added: "You foolish boy!"

"It wasn't foolish," he maintained doggedly. "I know what I ought to
do--and I'm not doing it. Everybody around here knows both of us, and--"

"Hush!" she commanded. "I refuse to hear another word. I said you were a
foolish boy, and it will be inexcusably impolite in you to prove that
you are not."

Tom was glad enough to be silent; and it came to him, after a little,
that she was giving him a chance to pull himself together to meet the
ordeal that was before him. In all the misery of the moment--the misery
which belongs to those who ride to the block, the gallows or other
mortal finalities--he marveled that she could be a girl and still be so
thoughtful and far-seeing; and once again it made him feel young and
inadequate and awkwardly her inferior.

At the Woodlawn gates she pulled the old-fashioned, check-strap signal,
and Scipio reined in his horses.

"Are you quite sure you don't want me to go in with you?" she asked,
while Tom was fumbling the door-latch.

He nodded and said: "There'll be trouble enough to go around among as
many as can crowd in, all right. But I can't let you."

"Still, you won't say you don't want me?"

"No; lying isn't one of the things I was expelled for. When I stand up
to my mother to tell her what I've got to tell her, I'd be glad if there
was a little fise-dog sniffling around to back me up. But I'm not going
to call in the neighbors--you, least of all."

"You are disappointing me right along--and I'm rather glad," she said.
And then, almost wistfully: "You are going to be