aking
apples wildly off a laden bough by way of emphasis. "I know all the
people--what they are--what they can be. It's like reading a book for
the twentieth time. I know where I was born and who I'll marry--and
where I'll be buried. That's knowing too much. All my days will be
alike when I marry Randall. There will never be anything unexpected or
surprising about them. I tell you Janet," Avery seized another bough
and shook it with a vengeance, "I hate the very thought of it."

"The thought of--what?" said Janet in bewilderment.

"Of marrying Randall Burnley--or marrying anybody down here--and
settling down on a farm for life."

Then Avery sat down on the rung of her ladder and laughed at Janet's
face.

"You look stunned, Janet. Did you really think I wanted to marry
Randall?"

Janet was stunned, and she did think that. How could any girl not want
to marry Randall Burnley if she had the chance?

"Don't you love him?" she asked stupidly.

Avery bit into a nut-sweet apple.

"No," she said frankly. "Oh, I don't hate him, of course. I like him
well enough. I like him very well. But we'll quarrel all our lives."

"Then what are you marrying him for?" asked Janet.

"Why, I'm getting on--twenty-two--all the girls of my age are married
already. I won't be an old maid, and there's nobody but Randall.
Nobody good enough for a Sparhallow, that is. You wouldn't want me to
marry Ned Adams or John Buchanan, would you?"

"No," said Janet, who had her full share of the Sparhallow pride.

"Well, then, of course I must marry Randall. That's settled and
there's no use making faces over the notion. I'm not making faces, but
I'm tired of hearing you talk as if you thought I adored him and must
be in the seventh heaven because I was going to marry him, you
romantic child."

"Does Randall know you feel like this?" asked Janet in a low tone.

"No. Randall is like all men--vain and self-satisfied--and believes
I'm crazy about him. It's just as well to let him think so, until
we're safely married anyhow. Randall has some romantic notions too,
and I'm not sure that he'd marry me if he knew, in spite of his three
years' devotion. And I have no intention of being jilted three weeks
before my wedding day."

Avery laughed again, and tossed away the core of her apple.

Janet, who had been very pale, went crimson and lovely. She could not
endure hearing Randall criticized. "Vain and self-satisfied"--when
there was never a man less