ing was one thing no outsider could
decide about. I have been dead agin marriages that afterwards turned out
tiptop, and you know I didn't show such far-reaching wisdom in my own
case as to set myself up as a judge."

"Well, you needn't have any fears on my account," Dixie smiled,
assuringly. "I know what I am about, and I ain't the back-out kind. It's
too late, anyway; the day has been set. For the last two weeks I've been
giving every spare minute to the making of my outfit. It is a good one.
I was determined to give Miss Wade a treat. I do things right, and I've
spent some cash. My trousseau will attract attention, and I reckon Peter
won't be ashamed. But it is to be kept quiet. Don't you say a word to a
soul. A week from to-day I'll drive in and meet the up-train and haul my
bridegroom home in my wagon. We'll eat dinner at our house and then
drive over to Preacher Sanderson's and have him tie the knot. Now I'll
go down in front and buy a few things and mail my letter and hurry
home."

"Wait a minute, Dixie." She was moving away, and he stopped her,
standing before her, a grave look in his eyes. "Surely it ain't as dead
sure as that?"

"Yes, it is, Alfred; it's settled--plumb settled."

"But--but," he pursued, anxiously, "if you didn't like him when you see
him, you wouldn't marry him?"

"Oh, that's a gray horse of another color," she smiled. "I think I'll
like him; but if I didn't--well, if I didn't, I'd pay his way back to
Florida, and beg off."

Henley made no further protest. He sat at his desk and bowed his head
in troubled thought as she tripped lightly away.

"What a pity!" he mused. "She deserves the best in the land, and this
fellow looks like a worthless scamp."

CHAPTER VI

That evening after supper, while the sultry dusk hung heavily over the
land, shutting out the few lights of the village and obscuring the
near-by mountain, Henley took his chair into the passage, and, without
his coat, he leaned back against the weather-boarding and lighted his
pipe. He had not been there long when his wife, having finished her
duties in the kitchen, came out and stood over him. Accustomed to her
varying moods, he saw by her attitude that she was displeased.

"Pa told me something I don't like," she began. "I tried not to pay
attention to it, but it was so unexpected, so unheard-of, so plumb
disrespectful, that it hurt me. He said you told him you was going to
Texas to keep from being here during th