never goin' to quit till 'next time' is no more, and
it's 'all the time' for you and me."

With that he had ridden away, not even touching her hand. Long after
he had gone she was still In her chair, her eyes lingering upon his
flowers, those yellow cups of the prickly pear. At length she had
risen impatiently, caught up the flowers, gone with them to the open
window,-and then, after all, set them with pains in water.

But to-day Bear Creek was over. She was going home now. By the week's
end she would be started. By the time the mail brought him her good-by
letter she would be gone. She had acted.

To Bear Creek, the neighborly, the friendly, the not comprehending, this
move had come unlooked for, and had brought regret. Only one hard word
had been spoken to Molly, and that by her next-door neighbor and kindest
friend. In Mrs. Taylor's house the girl had daily come and gone as
a daughter, and that lady reached the subject thus:-- "When I took
Taylor," said she, sitting by as Robert Browning and Jane Austen were
going into their box, "I married for love."

"Do you wish it had been money?" said Molly, stooping to her industries.

"You know both of us better than that, child."

"I know I've seen people at home who couldn't possibly have had any
other reason. They seemed satisfied, too."

"Maybe the poor ignorant things were!"

"And so I have never been sure how I might choose."

"Yes, you are sure, deary. Don't you think I know you? And when it comes
over Taylor once in a while, and he tells me I'm the best thing in his
life, and I tell him he ain't merely the best thing but the only thing
in mine,--him and the children,--why, we just agree we'd do it all over
the same way if we had the chance."

Molly continued to be industrious.

"And that's why," said Mrs. Taylor, "I want every girl that's anything
to me to know her luck when it comes. For I was that near telling Taylor
I wouldn't!"

"If ever my luck comes," said Molly, with her back to her friend, "I
shall say 'I will' at once."

"Then you'll say it at Bennington next week."

Molly wheeled round.

"Why, you surely will. Do you expect he's going to stay here, and you in
Bennington?" And the campaigner sat back in her chair.

"He? Goodness! Who is he?"

"Child, child, you're talking cross to-day because you're at outs with
yourself. You've been at outs ever since you took this idea of leaving
the school and us and everything this needless way. You h