intermittent little gurgles, which refused to stay entirely
pent-up; he frowned at her seemingly inane interruptions of the
technical discussion into which he had immediately plunged with the
East Coast Company's engineer, until he could no longer ignore the
smile which pulled at the lips of the latter, too, at every fresh
attempt of the girl to swing the conversation into an utterly
irrelevant channel. He looked around the table then and caught the
gleam in Caleb's eyes; he took note of Miss Sarah's illuminated face,
and gave way to a burst of querulousness not all simulation.

"_What_ is the joke?" he demanded in a voice that set them all to
rocking in their chairs. "Let me in on it--let me laugh, too--if there
is anything worth laughing at. Cal, you're growing old--old and
feeble-witted!"

He turned sternly to his daughter, but the darkly glowing eyes which
she lifted to his absolutely silenced him for an instant. Twin devils
of mischief fairly danced in their shimmering, liquid depths. The
girl's face, even to him who had long before grown overfamiliar with
its beauty, was a wonderfully lovely thing. Allison sat and stared at
her for a moment, blankly, and when he went on his voice had become
less testy.

"And you," he growled, "you have interrupted me a dozen times already,
always with some nonsense of which I can make neither rime nor reason.
Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get Mr. O'Mara's reason for
establishing his headquarters at Thirty-Mile, instead of directing the
work from Morrison, which would seem to be far more convenient."

Barbara bobbed her head, meekly. Her giggle, however, was shameless.

"But Mr. O'Mara has been trying to tell you," she defended in a
suffocated small voice, "that it's because the work at this end is not
so difficult. There are several miles of swamp work, I think he said,
and a bridge or something, which promises trouble. I--I am sorry if I
interrupted. I only wanted to ask Mr. O'Mara a question myself--a--a
very unimportant question, I'm afraid!"

Allison had had experience with his daughter's seeming meekness.
Moreover, the working of Caleb's and Sarah's faces baffled him. He
waited, fuming.

"Just before you and Uncle Cal came in we--we were talking about the
weather," the girl struggled on. "Mr. O'Mara predicted it would rain
soon and I just wanted to ask him what made him think so."

"Yes?" Allison temporized.

It was very quiet for a moment. Stev