the Graveses, who were unfamiliar with the graceful art of getting away.
He found a seat in front of them, and sat stiff beside a man who
drowsed.

"I'm a hopeless fool," he thought, "a fool in anger, a fool in love. A
fool even in the eyes of that idiot of a railroad president in yonder
smirking around Fannie.

"They'll laugh at me together, I suppose. O, Fannie, why can't I give
you up? I know you're a flirt. Jeff-Jack knows it. I solemnly believe
that's why he doesn't ask you to marry him!

"Yes, they're probably all laughing at me by now. O, was ever mortal man
so utterly alone! And these people think what makes me so is this silly
temper. They say it! Mother assures me they say it! I believe I could
colonize our lands if it wa'n't for that. O, I will colonize them! I'll
do it all alone. If that jackanapes could open this road I can open our
lands. Whatever he used I can use; whatever he did I can do!"

"Sir?" said the neighbor at his elbow, "O excu--I thought you spoke."

"Hem! No, I was merely clearing my throat.

"I can do it. I'll do it alone. She shall see me do it--they shall all
see. I'll do it alone--all alone----"

He caught the steel-shod rhythm of the train and said over and over with
ever bigger and more bitter resolution, "I'll do it alone--I'll do it
alone!"

Then he remembered Garnet.

XXVII.

TO SUSIE--FROM PUSSIE

ON the return trip Garnet sat on the arm of almost every seat except
Fannie's.

"No, sir; no, keep your seat!" He wouldn't let anybody be "disfurnished"
for him! Proudfit had got the place next his wife and thought best to
keep it.

"Mr. Fair," said Garnet, "I'd like you to notice how all this region was
made in ages past. You see how the rocks have been broken and
tossed,"--etc.

"Mr. Fair"--the same speaker--"I _wish_ you'd change your mind and stay
a week with us. Come, spend it at Rosemont. It's vacation, you know, and
Barb and I shan't have a thing to do but give you a good time; shall we,
Barb?"

"It will give us a good time," said Barb. Her slow, cadenced
voice, steady eye, and unchallenging smile charmed the young Northerner.
He had talked about her to Fannie at luncheon and pronounced her
"unusual."

"Why, really"--he began, looked up at Garnet and back again to Barbara.
Garnet bent over him confidentially.

"Just between us I'd like to advise with you about something I've never
mentioned to a soul. That is about sending Barb to some place North to