ays said he proposed to me. He
wrote me a letter all mixed up, about everything in the world; and I
was awfully busy just then, selling tickets for a church fair of Cousin
Anna's. I never was any good selling tickets anyhow," explained
Marjorie, settling herself more nestlingly in her corner of the
window-seat; "and so when he said somewhere in the letter that anything
he could ever do for me he would do on the wings of the wind, I wrote
back and said yes, he could buy two tickets for the church fair. And,
oh, but he was furious! He sent the check for the tickets with the
maddest letter you ever saw; and he accused me of refusing him in a
cold and ignoring manner. And I'd torn up the letter, the way I always
do, and so I couldn't prove anything about it to him. But he didn't
come to the fair. Ye-es, I suppose that was a proposal. The man ought
to know, shouldn't he?"

Francis was tired; he had a consciousness of having behaved unkindly
that weighed him down and made for gloom. He had come in with Marjorie
for the purpose of delivering an imposing warning. But he couldn't
help laughing.

"I suppose so," he acknowledged. "Never mind, Marjorie, you didn't
really want him, did you?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, no. Nobody could. Or--wait, somebody must, because I think he's
married. But he wasn't the kind a girl that cared what she got wanted."

But Francis went back to Pennington.

"About Pennington," he began again. "You don't know how easy it is for
you to let a man think you're encouraging him, when you really aren't
saying a word or doing a thing, or think you aren't. I want you to
promise me you'll be very careful where he's concerned, even cold."

"Cold!" she said indignantly. "But I'm married! You seem to forget
that!"

Francis had not forgotten it in the least. He forgot it all too little
for his own comfort, he might have told her. But he was rebuked.

"I didn't know you went on the principle that you had to act exactly
like a regular married woman," he apologized with meekness.

"I do," she said shortly.

He rose and went over to where the banjo lay and brought it back to
her. It was growing dusk now in the little cabin.

"Play for me, and sing, won't you, Marjorie?" he asked abruptly. "I
haven't heard you for a long time."

In Marjorie's mind there arose the memory of that boyish, loving little
note that she had found under the banjo, and for a minute her throat
clutched so t