enough to suit me. I felt sort o' flighty, with her big dark eyes
lookin' into me, an' while I was stutterin' she opened up on me an'
give me a good old-fashioned scoldin'--an' I felt dandy. Bill, he was
troubled some with startin' eyes. Jessamie was breedy all right, but
compared to Barbie, she looked like a six o' suit alongside the queen
o' trumps.

"Why," sez Barbie, turnin' to Jessamie, "everything always goes right
when Happy's present. I might have known from your description that it
was Happy who saw the only way--"

"Oh, pshaw, now," sez I, breakin' in, "I didn't do a blasted thing.
Cupid here was the master workman on this job, while Bill--"

"That's all true enough," sez Barbie, "you have the gift of hidin'
yourself in your work; but I can see you just the same."

It was certainly comfortin' to hear the way she went on about it; but
it was a little too cold-blooded for my nerves, 'cause I hadn't done a
thing this time but make one small suggestion; so we finally
compromised by admittin' that now an' again, I was picked out to be the
nail on the finger of Fate. Sometimes I rather think that comes purty
close to hittin' me.

Jessamie had graduated from the university where Barbie was goin', at
the close of Barbie's first year. They had met, an' remembered each
other; an' as soon as the news of the doin's had reached the Diamond
Dot, of course Barbie piked over to make a call. The outcome was that
when the Colonel sent out a man to take my place, I rode back to the
Diamond Dot with Barbie, an' it was mighty good to be there again.

Jabez give me a good firm hand-shake, an' didn't rub it in about the
silkworms; so that everything just slid along as smooth as joint-oil,
an' I had a good opportunity to estimate the benefit of Barbie's
schoolin'. She was a heap more changed than I had supposed at first;
the' was a way she had of holdin' her head an' walkin' an' talkin',
that showed me quick enough that money spent on her edication wasn't
nowise wasted.

But she went back to her last year soon after this, intendin' to be the
best maid at Jessamie's weddin'. This weddin' was a curious thing an'
opened my eyes purty wide to the ways of women. I'd 'a' been willin' to
bet my saddle that the one man she never would marry, was Bill; but she
owned up herself that she had made up her mind to marry him the first
night they met. She wasn't quite sure of it until him an' her had the
fall-out over Cupid, and that settled