ul good of you to take my daughter," she said, in grateful
tones. "She has so little pleasure in her life, and she's been wanting
to go to Carlton for a long time. A place even as much like a city as
that is, kind o' interests a young girl. She's always reading about the
doings over there among the rich folks."

"I'll see that nothing happens to her, and fetch her back safe," he
promised. Then Dixie emerged from the house wearing her best dress, a
white muslin, immaculately clean and well ironed, and adorned by broad,
pink ribbons which heightened her complexion. Her hat was new and most
becoming, and as she rustled out to the gate he felt a thrill of pride
in having such a presentable companion. She touched her mother playfully
under the chin and kissed her on the cheek.

"Now, Muttie," she said, "you've got to be on your good behavior while
I'm off or I'll switch you good when I get back. I have put the exact
feed for the horse in his trough, and pumped the tub full of water, and
you only have to let down the stable-door bars at twelve and he'll do
the rest. The chicken-feed is already mixed in the dish-pan, and you
only have to tilt it out of the kitchen-window and they'll divide it
amongst 'em."

"Oh, I can attend to everything!" Mrs. Hart remarked to Henley. "I
reckon you've found out that she's a regular case."

"Case or not," Dixie broke in, as Henley was smiling and nodding his
response, "I'm not through yet. If I don't tell you, you'll be begging
for something to eat amongst the neighbors. Your dinner is already
cooked and the coffee made. All you'll have to do is to set it on the
coals and warm it up. The sugar is right at the coffee-pot, and the
cream is in the spring-house to keep it from souring.

"I didn't dare hint to 'em about--about that Carlton fellow," Dixie
said, in a confidential tone, as they drove away. She was holding her
big hat on to keep it from blowing off in the crisp current of their own
making.

"You didn't?" he said, interrogatively, charmed as he had never been
before by her propinquity and vivaciousness.

"Not after being sold as bad as I was by letting them know about that
other scrape," she laughed, as she glanced at him archly. "Why, they
would meet us a mile out on the road to-night--the halt leading the
blind--to know every particular. No, I've been burnt once, and I don't
want a second coat of blisters."

"You certainly look stunning." Henley allowed his admiring eyes to