d to the utmost. HE had decreed that Dan should be operated
on, HE had decided that she should not be with him, HE had come to tell
her that the big, protecting arm and heart were gone forever--and now
he had an early buttercup in his buttonhole, and on his lips the last
of the laughter that he had just been sharing with Mary Dickey! And
Mary, the picture of complacent daintiness, was sauntering on, waiting
for him.

Shandon was not a reasonable creature. With a sound between a snarl and
a sob she caught the light driving whip from its socket and brought the
lash fairly across the doctor's smiling face. As he started back, stung
with intolerable pain, she lashed in turn the nervous horse, and in
another moment the cart and its occupants were racketing down the home
road again.

"And now we never WILL git no closer to Shandon Waters!" said Johnnie
Larabee, regretfully, for the hundredth time. It was ten days later,
and Mrs. Larabee and Mrs. Cass Dinwoodie were high up on the wet hills,
gathering cream-colored wild iris for the Dickey wedding that night.

"And serve her right, too!" said Mrs. Dinwoodie, severely. "A great
girl like that lettin' fly like a child."

"She's--she's jest the kind to go crazy, brooding as she does," Mrs.
Larabee submitted, almost timidly. She had been subtly pleading
Shandon's cause for the past week, but it was no use. The last outrage
had apparently sealed her fate so far as Deaneville was concerned. Now,
straightening her cramped back and looking off toward the valleys below
them, Mrs. Larabee said suddenly:

"That looks like Shandon down there now."

Mrs. Dinwoodie's eyes followed the pointing finger. She could
distinguish a woman's moving figure, a mere speck on the road far below.

"Sure it is," said she. "Carryin' Dan, too."

"My goo'ness," said Johnnie, uneasily, "I wish she wouldn't take them
crazy walks. I don't suppose she's walking up to town?"

"I don't know why she should," said Mrs. Dinwoodie, dryly, "with the
horses she's got. I don't suppose even Shandon would attempt to carry
that great child that far, cracked as she seems to be!"

"I don't suppose we could drive home down by the marsh road?" Johnnie
asked. Mrs. Dinwoodie looked horrified.

"Johnnie, are you crazy yourself?" she demanded. "Why, child, Mary's
going to be married at half-past seven, and there's the five-o'clock
train now."

The older matron made all haste to "hitch up," sending not even another
lo