spur
feathering up, she seemed to see long beds of flowers in bloom. She even
heard the bees humming over them and the tumult of nesting birds. And
all the time Jake Preble waited, looking at her back and wondering if
after all the losses of his life he was to forfeit Mariana, who, he
knew, was life itself.

"Well," said he, in deep despondency, "I s'pose it's no use. I see how
you feel about it. Any woman would feel the same."

Mariana turned suddenly, and, seeing she was smiling, he took a hurried
step to meet her.

"I 'most forgot you," she said, with a whimsical lilt in her voice. "I
was thinkin' how elegant it is when we get home at last."

"Yes," said Jake dejectedly. "I s'pose you're considerin' your own house
an' your own gardin-spot's the best there is in the world."

"Why, no," said Mariana, with a little movement toward him. "I wa'n't
thinkin' o' my house nor my gardin particular. I guess I was thinkin' o'
yours. Leastways, I was thinkin' o' _you_."

PARTNERS

"I guess I shall fetch it," said Newell Bond.

He was sitting on the doorstep, in the summer dusk, with Dorcas Lee. She
knew just how his gaunt, large-featured face looked, with its hawk-like
glance, and the color, as he spoke, mounting to his forehead. There were
two kinds of Bonds, the red and the black. The red Bonds had the name of
carrying out their will in all undertakings, and Newell was one. Dorcas
was on the step above him, her splendid shoulders disdaining the support
of the casing, and her head, with its heavy braids, poised with an
unconscious pride, no more spirited by daylight than here in the dark
where no one saw. She answered in her full, rich voice:--

"Of course you will, if you want to bad enough."

"If I want to?" repeated Newell. "Ain't I acted as if 'twas the one
thing I did want?"

Over and over they had dwelt upon the great purpose of his life,
sometimes to touch it here and there with delicate implication, and
often to sit down, by an unspoken consent, for long, serious talks.
To-night Newell spoke from a reminiscent mood. There were times when,
in an ingenuous egoism, he had to take down the book of his romance and
read a page. But only to Dorcas. She was his one confidant; she
understood.

"I don't know 's Alida's to blame," he meditated. "She's made that way."

Immediately Dorcas, in her sympathetic mind, was regarding a picture of
Alida Roe as she saw her without illusion of passion or prejudice--a