with my arms and
legs--whole--will you marry me?"

"Only come home _alive_, and no matter what you lose, yes!--yes!" she
whispered, brokenly.

"But it's a conditional proposal, Lenore," he insisted. "You must never
marry half a man."

"I will marry _you_!" she cried, passionately.

It seemed to her that she loved him all the more, every moment, even
though he made it so hard for her. Then through blurred, dim eyes she
saw him take something from his pocket and felt him put a ring on her
finger.

"It fits! Isn't that lucky," he said, softly. "My mother's ring,
Lenore...."

He kissed her hand.

Kathleen was standing near them, open-eyed and open-mouthed, in an
ecstasy of realization.

"Kathleen, your sister has promised to marry me--when I come from the
war," said Dorn to the child.

She squealed with delight, and, manifestly surrendering to a
long-considered temptation, she threw her arms around his neck and
hugged him close.

"It's perfectly grand!" she cried. "But what a chump you are for going
at all--when you could marry Lenorry!"

That was Kathleen's point of view, and it must have coincided somewhat
with Mr. Anderson's.

"Kathleen, you wouldn't have me be a slacker?" asked Dorn, gently.

"No. But we let Jim go," was her argument.

Dorn kissed her, then turned to Lenore. "Let's go out to the fields."

* * * * *

It was not a long walk to the alfalfa, but by the time she got there
Lenore's impending woe was as if it had never been. Dorn seemed
strangely gay and unusually demonstrative; apparently he forgot the
war-cloud in the joy of the hour. That they were walking in the open
seemed not to matter to him.

"Kurt, some one will see you," Lenore remonstrated.

"You're more beautiful than ever to-day," he said, by way of answer, and
tried to block her way.

Lenore dodged and ran. She was fleet, and eluded him down the lane,
across the cut field, to a huge square stack of baled alfalfa. But he
caught her just as she got behind its welcome covert. Lenore was far
less afraid of him than of laughing eyes. Breathless, she backed up
against the stack.

"You're--a--cannibal!" she panted. But she did not make much resistance.

"You're--a goddess!" he replied.

"Me!... Of what?"

"Why, of 'Many Waters'!... Goddess of wheat!... The sweet, waving wheat,
rich and golden--the very spirit of life!"

"If anybody sees you--mauling me--this way--I'll not seem a goddess t