ls. Sally did not giggle, but
acted as normal sensible girls should act when pinning aprons on young
men.

She tossed him a towel and bade him dry the plates as she placed them on
the drain board. She worked quickly, and it was evident that she was a
capable and efficient young woman who took an honest pride in her work.

"You've never stopped here before? I thought. I didn't remember you.
Well, we're always glad to see the Governor, he's so funny; but say,
some of the people who come along--!"

"I hope," said Archie, turning a dish to the light to be sure it was
thoroughly polished, "I hope my presence isn't offensive?"

"Cut it out!" she returned crisply. "Of course you're all right. I knew
you were a real gent the first squint I got of you. You can't fool me
much on human nature."

"You've always lived up here?" asked Archie, meek under her frank
approval.

"Certainly not. I was born in Missouri, a grand old state if I do say it
myself, and we came here when I was twelve. I went through high school
and took dairying and the domestic arts in college and I'm twenty-three
if you care to know."

He had known finishing-school girls and college girls and girls who had
been educated by traveling governesses, but Sally was different and
suffered in no whit by comparison. Her boasted knowledge of the human
race was negligible beside her familiarity with the mysterious
mechanisms of cream separators and incubators. Fate had certainly found
a strange way of completing his education! But for the shot he had fired
in the lonely house by the sea, he would never have known that girls
like Sally existed. As he assisted her to restore the dishes to the
pantry, she crossed the kitchen with queenly stride. Isabel hadn't a
finer swing from the hips or a nobler carriage. When he abandoned his
criminal life he would assemble somewhere all the girls he had met in
his pilgrimage. There should be a round table, but where Isabel sat
would be the head, and his sister should chaperone the party. When it
dispersed he would tell Isabel, very honestly, of his reaction to each
one, and if she took him to task for his susceptibility it would be a
good defense that she was responsible for sending him forth to wrestle
with temptation.

When the kitchen was in perfect order they reported the fact to Mrs.
Walker and Sally suggested that they stroll to a trout brook which was
her own particular property. The stream danced merrily from the hills