prayer-glass the
beginning of that ardent affair. From their lofty place of vantage
twenty-four and twenty-four might not have been quite suitable, but
years could stand for naught against the tower of mental strength and
character with which they knew Marian to be possessed. They would
gladly have greeted her as one of themselves, one to mother Jeb, to see
that he was warmly clothed and did not eat imprudently. He had always
been a child to them! Many times, in the bygone days, Miss Sallie would
hint at this ideal mating, till at last the daughter of Amos Strong had
wrapped the little woman in her arms, saying sweetly that she preferred
something in life besides "mothering an overgrown, selfish boy."

It had cost her something to say this, for in her heart she was just
beginning to know how adoringly she could be these things and more to
him. As a child she mothered him; at ten he bullied her; in their 'teens
she had bossed and mothered him again! Love him? She admitted it through
tears to her mirror--and yet, withal, she had understood him just a
shade too well!

Then came the day--as such days will--when she was cornered, pinioned,
made captive!--when she could no longer fight, and knew that surrender
was but a matter of hours. Much of that night (she remembered every
minute of it now!) she had lain awake watching her heart and her level
judgment wage their last battle; and the next afternoon, an hour before
he was to come, she quietly left for Baltimore, or New York--or it may
have been Chicago--to take the course in nursing.

Her eyes now swept him with tenderness as the memory of that day came
rushing back, but a shadow of disappointment crossed them as she saw
that he was still looking, fascinated, at the proof of his skill. Was
her return, after an absence of two years, so meaningless that he could
be engrossed by a few sheets of inert paper while she stood within touch
of him?

"You shoot very well, Jeb," she said, casually.

"Don't I though!" he cried. "See, Marian--here's the five hundred!"

"I should think," she said, glancing at it indifferently, "that you'd
join the regular army."

"You bet I will, if the time ever comes when we've got to fight! I
wouldn't ask for anything better! Gee, I wish we'd declare war
to-morrow!"

"I rather think," she slowly replied, "that your wish is very near
fulfillment, Jeb."

He turned quickly and stared at her.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, tensely.