for expensively bred and trained animals, and it's a sort
of fancy advertising; but I don't care for a human application of the
same idea."

"I feel that way, too," he responded quickly, "and not being expensively
bred or trained, I can't escape feeling like a cart horse would feel in
that ring."

"I'm going to make my debut, Boone," she said quietly. "I'm going to do
it because both mother and Uncle Tom have their hearts set on it and
there's no graciousness in stubborn resistance. There are times coming
when I've got to stand out against them, and I don't want to multiply
them needlessly. But there's something more than just ordinary dislike
back of my feeling as I do about it all, and I think it's a thing you'd
be the first to understand."

"I guess I ought to understand, Anne, but I've got so much to learn.
Please make allowances for me and explain." His tone was humble and
self-accusing.

"This debut ball is just their way of putting me on the marriage
market--duly labelled and proclaimed. I don't fancy being put up at
auction, and it doesn't even seem quite honest. It's not a genuine offer
of sale, because it's all fixed in their own minds. Morgan is to bid me
in when the time comes."

Boone's face grew sombre, and his strong mouth line stiffened over his
resolute chin.

"God knows that arrangement is going to come to grief," he said in a low
voice that shook with feeling.

"Not if Lochinvar doesn't come to the party," she retorted with a swift
change to the riffle of laughing eyes. "I'm letting sleeping dogs lie
for the present, Boone, because it's the best way. There isn't any doubt
of you in my heart. You know that, but it will be a long time before you
can marry me. Meantime,--" the battle light shone for a flashing instant
in her pupils--"I'm standing out for one thing. They've got to give you
full acknowledgment. Everybody that accepts me must accept you--and
unless you claim recognition, they won't do it."

Boone rose and came over. He took her hands in his own and looked down
at her, and, though he smiled, his voice was full of worship.

"Lochinvar will come, dearest," he declared. "He'll come in full
war-paint, and nobody but himself will know how stiff he's scared."

It was the morning after that that Boone sat again as a defendant in the
police court, flanked by Morgan and the Colonel. He was on trial for
shooting and wounding, and there had been broadly circulated hints that
his prosecutio