interested in
knowing whether you pass."

"Well," she said, "I suppose I might easily let you know."

"My address is Thornton, Box 20. I get my mail every day--excepting
the last few days, of course;--but I will get it again promptly as soon
as I am out of this fix I am in. I don't suppose--"

"Why, are you in some sort of trouble?" she asked, interrupting him.

"Not very serious. I need a herder. I really ought to have two or
three for a while now. I don't suppose, Miss Janet, there is any
_doubt_ that you will pass?"

"I think," she said, a playful light now touching her features, "it is
quite possible for me not to pass. I suppose I could have passed
easily enough four years ago. But after I got out of the Academy, I
went to live with my aunt; and women, you know, don't keep up their
interest in algebra and things. This winter when Aunt Mary died, in
Toledo, I came down here."

She stepped forward again and extended her hand.

He had been seeing more and more of beauty as he gazed into her eyes.
The Truth was in them deeper than words. They were large gray eyes,
gentle and quiet and soft as dawn; and they had that fulfilling
influence which spread peace upon the waters of his soul.

"Good-bye, Mr. Brown. I am very much obliged to you."

"Well--good-bye, Miss Janet. Be sure and let me know."

She turned at once and proceeded on her way.

With her attention straight ahead, but without any landmark to go by,
she went resolutely forward, and when finally she turned to look back
she saw him standing just as she had left him. He did not seem to have
moved. Again she put forward, widening the distance in imagination;
and the next time she turned to view her work, the shack was sinking
behind a billow of land. She stood now and gazed back at the flat,
flowered expanse; then she turned her back upon it for the last time.
One does not look long upon the gay curtain after it has closed upon
the scene.

"I would be interested in knowing whether you pass." The morning had
shed new light upon her situation; and this shed a light upon morning.
And now that she could view her adventure in the light of its outcome,
she went back to the moment of their meeting, and did so, recalling
what next he said or did. She lived it all over again; this time more
understandingly. Meantime the prairie accommodated her with its
silence. It was the same sameness as on the day before; but not to her.

With her eyes