ing about you--particularly."

"That's not so surprising," replied Phil, returning to earth a little
reluctantly, "when I've been seeing you every evening and it was pretty
sure to happen so to-day. Let's hurry along or Amy will say bitter
things to us that he will always regret."

"I want to tell you something before we go on," he said, with a gravity
that caused her to look at him sharply.

"Fred Holton, you and I are old friends now, and good pals. I hope
you're not going to spoil it all."

"I love you, Phil; I can't help telling you: I have to tell you now."

She reached down, picked up a pebble and flung it at the star.

Assured, by the sound of its fall afar off in the corn, that it had
missed Jupiter, she gave him her attention. He broke in before she could
speak.

"I know there are reasons why I shouldn't tell you. I want you to know I
have thought about them; I know that there are family reasons why--"

She laid her hand gently on his arm.

"Dear old Fred," she began, as a boy might have spoken to a comrade in
trouble, "there's nothing about you that isn't altogether fine. The
thing you were about to say you don't need to say--ever! If Amy didn't
know you were one of the best fellows in the world, he wouldn't have got
behind you when things were going wrong. He knew all those things that
are in your mind and he didn't care, and you may be sure I don't. So
that's all right, Fred."

His hope mounted as she spoke. The hand on his arm thrilled him. The
fact that he was a Holton did not, then, make any difference, and he had
been troubled about that ever since he realized how dear she had grown
to him.

"You've all been mighty good to me. If it hadn't been for your father
and Mr. Montgomery, I should have lost the farm. I'm better off than I
ever expected to be and I owe it all to them. It's a big thing when a
fellow's clear down and out to have helping hands like theirs. I don't
know how to say these things, but I love you, Phil. You don't know what
it has meant to know you--how thinking about you makes the day's work
easier as I tramp these fields. I know I oughtn't to ask a girl like you
to share a farmer's life, but I'll be so good to you, Phil! And I mean
to go on and win. You've made the world a different place for me, Phil.
I know what a poor clod I am, but I mean to study and to try and measure
up to you."

"Cut out that last proposition, Fred! I'm the harum-scarumest girl on
earth and I know