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quick dark of the south, and there was a long evening to be struggled through. Laurie tried to make it as cheerful as she could. She lit the indoors lamps and sang carols to her appreciative audience of one. But coming to the line,

Oh, rest upon the weary road and hear the angels sing!

she stopped with a break in her voice.

"Has the happy day been too much for you, my darling?" asked The McAllister wonderingly and a trifle wistfully.

"A little,” she answered, going to him where he sat and kneeling on the floor beside him for him to lay his hand upon her hair. She strangely felt a desire to be cared for, to be for once the ward instead of the guardian.

They both sat thinking of their late host.

"I have found out who he is," observed Andrew, after delighted reverie. "On his mother's side he is a Caxton, and I went to school with Gerald Caxton; that makes him absolutely a desirable acquaintance, my darling, absolutely!"

"I should hate to vouch for everybody I went to school with," she said, smiling faintly as she remembered Manhattan's cosmopolitan primer class.

"But I am speaking of a British institution!"

Rather fearing his hand's majestic withdrawal, she caught it and kissed it apologetically, then laid her cheek against it, thinking.

In Roycroft's photograph album there had been picture after picture of the beautiful English girl whose miniature was in his watch. Sometimes she was mature and magnificent in ball gowns; sometimes fascinatingly

girlish in garden dress; always she was aristocratic and lovely. And upon the photograph which had come but a day or so ago she had written with the frank audacity of security,

"From her who best loves you, to him who best loves me!"

O

CHAPTER XVI

N the morning when one has to give one's pet kitten away is it not noticeable how much pret

tier she seems than usual, how more than ordinarily fond of one, how extra full of attractive antics? Following the general philosophy of the above-for Little Eva was not in the least concerned with the circumstances, and was far too much of an imbecile to be given away to anyone or taken-Laurie thought she had never seen her grove look more promising than it did that sultry, muggy January morning.

The golden fruit positively spelled the inspiring message "Cash soon" as it hung in rich plenty, ripely ready to fall into the hands of the pickers. And Selig had sent word that his dusky horde of strippers with their ladders and bags and clipping shears might be expected any day.

The feeling that the winter season was practically over and had passed without the catastrophe of a cold snap, went to Laurie's head with a rush of relief that temporarily turned her into a fit mistress for an idiot pussy. She did not know how sickeningly heavy had been her constant anxiety till it blew over and blew away and set her free. Her feet danced, her spirit soared, and she acted as she felt like a happy child.

Mrs. Carter had told her to "rag" two or three trees for her own use, and she had done it; that is she had tied warning strips of calico to such as she intended to

keep free from the pickers who, so Mrs. Carter said, "were mighty apt to git around some sun-up and clean the grove afore breakfas' like crows in a cornfield."

There is a saying that there are two things a woman can do without the year round in Florida—a hat and a house.

"You can do without a jacket, too," remarked Laurie this morning, peeling hers from her and throwing it to the porch rail. She glanced at the thermometer which hung outside, and saw that it stood at sixty-five. "Wouldn't have been surprised to have you say ninety," she told it, so irrationally gay that she was willing to talk aloud to anything and everything.

"Has Charles come?" asked her grandfather, trotting around a corner of the porch. "He checkmated me yesterday and promised me an early revenge. Is he here ?"

"No, I was just talking to the" On the point of finishing the old adage in regard to people who chat with themselves, she stopped short. The frightful word "devil" would have entailed half an hour's worth of explanation, and she wanted to escape into the grove to gather some "drops" for a fruit salad.

So she waved her hand and went, leaving The McAllister pottering around the porch pretending to snip dead leaves from the blossoming Bignonia vine that was now covering the house with its fiery yellow clusters, but in reality hoping to waylay his young neighbor should that busy young man happen to row over.

In the grove, under the interlacing trees, the air was almost unendurably stuffy.

"Let me get out of this as soon as I can," the girl told herself, filling her apron with fruit, "for I can hardly breathe."

As she spoke she looked up in time to see that Roycroft had indeed rowed over, but with other ideas besides chess, for he strode rapidly past the house and entered the grove, searching for her. She stood holding up her apron bulging with fruit, and since she was doing the work of a field hand she felt entitled to use the language.

"Howdy, man," she greeted him jubilantly. "How is yo'-all dis mawnin'? An', lawsee, Mr. Rake-off, it's so warm I ent know wedder it's Janooa'y or July!”

He usually hated her when she talked darky, and could be relied upon to be properly haughty and consequently entertaining in reply. But this time he seemed not to recognize the challenge.

"You are right about the weather, it is not safe,” he said quickly. "I have come over to talk to you

about it."

"You must be fond of exercise," she commented. "Rowing clear across a lake in order to talk about the weather."

"I am fearful of the signs," he went on, still too earnest to heed her flippancies. "They began to be dangerous yesterday. They point to"

He paused and frowned thoughtfully around at the ungathered harvest of fruit.

"To what?" she asked, her insouciant smile gradually dying.

"To a serious drop in temperature to a freeze, in fact."

"How you everlastingly keep stewing over one thing or another," she finally remarked, with dismal inelegance. This particular man always stirred her to inelegance by reason of his constantly rigid propriety.

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