ould suggest that you--ask
him for corroboration, if you still hold to such an opinion."

Instantly Barbara rose and bobbed her head. She had always been a slim
creature of moods mercurial; she would always be that. And now her
violet eyes radiated anticipation, perverse and impish and far, far
different from the sullen dullness which had filled them an hour
before. Miss Sarah had spoken with well-seasoned wisdom, as was her
wont: there are sometimes big moments which are the bigger for lack of
analysis. The girl did not know why, all in one breath, she no longer
feared nor doubted--but she _knew_! And that was a world and all of
joy. She bobbed her head.

"Ask him?" she echoed, demurely confused. "Ask--_him_! To-morrow I am
going to dare him to ask _me_--again!"

But she did not obey Miss Sarah's suggestion that she return home and
rest. On winged feet she flew back through the hedge-gap and ordered
Ragtime saddled once more; yet when she touched that splendid beast
with the crop and sent him at a gallop down the drive, there was no
longer any sting in the lash. Even the groom, with critical eye,
noticed the difference in the girl's seat that afternoon; for days and
days to come he was the better contented with the companionship of
horses, which was his lot, in dwelling upon the crazy moods of women.
And Miriam Burrell, sighting Barbara's face as the latter wheeled
toward the hills, flew from her window to scratch off a note to
Garry--her third note that day, for she seemed always omitting most
important things which needed saying.

"It's come," she scrawled in delighted haste, "and Miss Sarah is a
visiting angel from Heaven! . . . When are we going to be married?"

Others knew of it almost as soon as she did herself, but knowledge of
that did not mar Barbara's rosy contemplation of this new-found,
totally unbelievable happiness. Once before she had ridden that road
with him alone in her thoughts; now she realized that she had loved him
then as she must have loved him always, and marveled at such blindness.
Once, on that other day, she had told herself that all ignoble and
unworthy comparisons of herself and him were done and gone. Now she
did not need such reassurance, when her lips were tremulous.

Rest? Pressing steadily into the north that afternoon, first at a
gallop, then more and more slowly until Ragtime was picking his own
gait, the girl smiled in pity for Miss Sarah and her day which had