their base, and with the green of lawn and trees.

"Good-afternoon, Isabel. I was saying to your mother, I hope such days
as this are some offset for the Southern weather and scenery you have
had to give up."

"You shouldn't tempt our Southern boastfulness, General," Isabel
replied, with an air of meek chiding. She had a pretty way of
skirmishing with men which always brought an apologetic laugh from her
mother, but which the General had discovered she never used in a company
of less than three.

"Oh! ho, ho!" laughed Mrs. Morris, who was just short, plump, and pretty
enough to laugh to advantage. "Why, General,"--she sobered abruptly, and
she was just pretty and plump and short enough to do this well,
also,--"my recovered health is offset enough for me."

"For _us_, my dear," said the daughter. "My mother's restored
health is offset enough for us, General. Indeed, for me"--addressing the
distant view--"there is no call for off-set; any landscape or climate is
perfect that has such friends in it as--as this one has."

"Oh! ho, ho!" laughed the mother again. Nobody ever told the Morrises
they had a delicious Southern accent, and their words are given here
exactly as they thought they spoke them.

"My dear," persisted Isabel, rebukingly, "I mean such friends as Ruth
Byington."

Mrs. Morris let go her little Southern laugh once more. "Don't you
believe her, General--don't you believe her. She means you every bit as
much as she means Ruth. She means everybody on Bylow Hill."

"I'm at the mercy of my interpreter," said Isabel. "But I thought"--her
eyes went out upon the skyline again--"I thought that men--that men--I
thought that men--My dear, you've made me forget what I thought!"

They laughed, all three. Isabel, with a playful sigh, clutched her
mother's hand, and the pair drew off and moved away to the bench.

"He puts you in good spirits," said the mother, breaking a silence.

"Good spirits! He puts me in pure heartache. Oh, why did you tell him?"

"Tell him? My child! I have not told him!"

"Oh, mother, do you not see you've told him point-blank that it's all
settled?"

"No, dearie, no! I only see that your distress is making you fanciful.
But why should he not be told, Isabel?"

"I'm not ready! Oh, I'm not ready! It may suit him well enough to hear
it, for he knows Leonard is too fine and great for me; but I'm not ready
to tell him."

"My darling, he knows you are good enough for any Leonard he can