_ make of her."

CHAPTER XIX

As the two friends approached the buggy, Dixie, who had seen them,
suddenly turned her head in an opposite direction and seemed to be
laughing immoderately at the beginning of a barrel-race. To attract her
attention Henley cleared his throat and coughed. But whether she heard
he never knew. At all events she was heartily amused, as was evidenced
by her free laughter and the sparkle of her merry eyes. As it was,
Henley reached the buggy and clutched the front wheel and shook it,
while, with his left hand, he held Long's arm in a nervous grasp.

"Oh, it's you!" she said, sweeping him with a careless glance and
allowing her eyes to be drawn back at once to the racers. "Ain't it fun?
You ought to have seen that boy try to climb the greasy pole just now.
He put sand all over his pants to make 'em rough, but he could only go
so high, and there he stopped, unable to budge a hair's-breadth. He hung
to it for a minute, as red as blood in the face, and then begun to slide
down as slow as the hour-hand of a clock till he sat flat on the
ground."

"I fetched Mr. Long down; you know--you may remember he wanted to meet
you," Henley stammered, under a restraint that was new to him. And, as
the couple stared at each other, he finished with a gulp--"Mr. Jasper
Long, Miss Dixie Hart--Miss Dixie Hart, Mr. Jasper Long."

Dixie was polite and absolutely unruffled, while Long was one straight
flush from head to foot. "Come--come over to see our brag show?" he
stuttered, with an untoward jerk of the body, for he had tried to put
his foot on the hub of the wheel and missed it. It was a bow so
pronounced that Long's hat was dislodged and hurled to the ground. In
his shocked sympathy for his friend, Henley was bewildered by noting
that Dixie was actually subduing a laugh, her rebellious lips covered
with her white-gloved hand. Long secured his hat, drew himself up, and
repeated his platitude.

"I thought I would," she said, now gravely studying his face, his hair,
his clothing, and his broad, restless hands, on the backs of which
rather long hairs lay beaded with perspiration. "Alfred was coming
along, and as I have never been to a tournament before, and as he was so
set on bringing me, I decided to make the trip. I've heard him speak of
you. You are in the bank, ain't you?"

"Why, no, Miss Dixie--" Henley began, but there was a certain warning
quality darting from her eyes, now fixed on him, that br