at you owe it to
yourself, to me, to all these men, who reverence you as the one woman, the
one ideal in their lonely lives."

She could not speak. The moment was too full, the strain had been too
great; but she smiled surrender, and Peter caught her tenderly in his arms
and kissed her once--his Judith she was now, his heroine. Then, without
another word, he drew her arm through his and led her back to the lights,
where the dancers still held high carnival.

Judith's half-sister, Eudora, was making a pretty quarrel by perversely
forgetting the order in which she had given her dances. The girl was so
undeniably happy that Judith dreaded the grim news she must tell her.
Eudora blushed as she encountered Judith's eye. Her half-sister ever
offered a check on Eudora's exuberant coquetry, with its precipitation of
discussions that often ended in bullets. Leander stood on the outermost
fringe of Eudora's potential partners. He would not have dared to maintain
it openly, yet he was sure the pretty minx had promised that dance to him.

"Dance with Leander, dear, and don't let those men begin quarrelling. I've
something to tell you, presently," said Judith.

Texas Tyler stood glowering at them from the doorway. He would not catch
Judith's eye as she tried to speak to him. Kitty sat alone for the moment.
She had sent the young lieutenant to fetch her a cup of coffee, but as
Peter approached with Judith she averted her eyes.

"Kitty, may I present to you my fiancee, Miss Rodney?"

Kitty rose superbly to the situation. She might, indeed, have made the
match she was so overjoyed in the good-fortune of her old friend Peter.
She made no reference to the woodland meeting--she hoped for the happiness
of seeing them in town. And she bade Peter tell the good news to Nannie
Wetmore, they would be so glad. Nannie swallowed a grimace and proffered a
cousinly hand. She had suspected some such news as this when she saw that
things were not going well with Kitty and Peter.

"Better one dance with a good partner that can swing ye than several with
a feeble partner that leaves ye to swing your own corners!"

Judith looked up, smiling. She recognized the characteristic utterance of
her old friend Mrs. Yellett. The matriarch had sustained a breakdown, and
arrived, in consequence, when the dance was half over, but she was
philosophical, as always, in the face of misfortune, and loudly attested
her pleasure in the renowned pedal feats of her pa