n Bess." After that he sat quite
still, letting his glance play with the mists of the valley, until Mrs.
Dysart rang the supper-bell.

"If she has a sense of humor, how much she must enjoy her!" he said to
himself, with the confusion of pronouns we all allow ourselves and view
with such scorn in others.

* * * * *

When a man first awakes to the fact that he is thinking of the wrong
woman, it is always with a comfortable sense of certainty that he can
change his attitude of mind by a slight effort of the will. If he does
not make the effort, it is only because he is long past the necessity of
demonstrating himself to himself, and not from any fickleness of fancy
on his own part. It was in this comfortable state of certainty that
Sidney Palmerston betook himself, a few days later, to the Brownell
tent, armed with a photograph which might have been marked "Exhibit A"
in the case which he was trying with himself before his own conscience.
If there was in his determination to place himself right with Miss
Brownell any trace of solicitude for the young woman, to the credit of
his modesty be it said, he had not formulated it. Perhaps there was. A
belief in the general overripeness of feminine affection, and a discreet
avoidance of shaking the tree upon which it grows, have in some way
become a part of masculine morals, and Sidney Palmerston was still young
enough to take himself seriously.

Miss Brownell had moved a table outside the tent, and was bending over a
map fastened to it by thumb-tacks.

"I am trying to find out what my father is doing," she said, looking
straight into Palmerston's eyes without a word of greeting. "I suppose
you know they are about to begin work on the tunnel."

The young man was beginning to be a trifle tired of the tunnel. "Dysart
mentioned it yesterday," he said. "May I sit down, Miss Brownell?"

She gave a little start, and went into the tent for another chair. When
she reappeared, Palmerston met her at the tent door and took the
camp-chair from her hand.

"I want to sit here," he said willfully, turning his back toward the
table. "I don't want to talk about the tunnel; I want to turn the
conversation upon agreeable things--myself, for instance."

She frowned upon him smilingly, and put her hand to her cheek with a
puzzled gesture.

"Have I talked too much about the tunnel?" she asked. "I thought
something might be done to stop it."

Palmerston shook