r.
Imagine Watts heading a posse, or locking any one up! And Watts has
passed the word to the colonel, and he has passed it to Molly and me,
and I am to see Mrs. Barclay, and she is to see Mrs. Carnine to-morrow
morning, and they are all to set to work on Nellie and get her to see
that it won't do. Poor Watts--the colonel says he is terribly wrought
up at the prospect."

The general folded his paper and smiled as he said: "Well, I don't
know; Watts was a brave soldier. He would make a good enough sheriff;
but I suppose he doesn't really care for it."

"Why, no, of course not, father--why should he?" asked the daughter.
"Anyhow, I want you to make Neal go down to Barclays' with me to-night
to talk it over with Jane. Neal," she called to the young man who was
sitting on the porch with his book on his knee, "Neal, I want you to
go to Barclays' with me to-night. Come in now, supper's ready."

And so it happened that Neal Dow Ward made his first call on Jeanette
Barclay with his sister, and they all sat on the porch together that
fine spring evening, with the perfume of the lilacs in the air; and it
happened naturally enough that the curious human law of attraction
which unites youth should draw the chairs of the two young people
together as they talked of the things that interest youth--the
parties and the ball-games and the fraternities and sororities, and
the freshman picnic and the senior grind; while the chairs of the two
others drew together as they talked of the things which interest women
in middle life--the affairs of the town, the troubles of Watts
McHurdie, the bereavement of the Culpeppers, the scarcity of good help
in the kitchen, the popularity of Max Nordau's "Social Evolution," and
the fun in "David Harum." Nor is it strange that after the girl had
shown the boy her Pi Phi pin, and he had shown her his Phi Delta
shield, they should fall to talking of the new songs, and that they
should slip into the big living room of the Barclay home, lighted by
the electric lamps in the hall, and that she should sit down to the
piano to show him how the new song went. And if the moonlight fell
across the piano, and upon her face as she sang the little Irish
folk-song, all in minors, with her high, trembling, half-formed notes
in the upper register, and if she flushed and looked up abashed and
had to be teased to go on,--not teased a great deal, but a
little,--will you blame the young man if he forgot for a moment that
h