ce where he could watch a corner of Fannie's distant hat.

"You won't see many fellows of age staying with their mothers by choice
instead o' running off after the girls," commented one of the Blackland
matrons, and the other replied:

"They haven't all got such mothers!"

Mrs. March was enjoying herself. "But, Mr. Ravenel," she said, putting
off part of her exhilaration, "you've really no right to be a bachelor."
She smiled aslant.

"My dear lady," he murmured, "people who live in gla----"

She started and tried to look sour, but grew sweeter. He became more
grave. "You're still young," he said, paused, and then--"You're a true
Daphne, but you haven't gone all to laurel yet. I wish--I wish I could
feel half as young as you look; I might hope"--he hushed, sighed, and
nerved himself.

"Why, Mr. Ravenel!" She glanced down with a winsome smile. "I'm at least
old enough to--to stay as I am if I choose?"

"Possibly. But you needn't if you don't choose." He folded his arms as
if to keep them from doing something rash.

Mrs. March bit her lip. "I can't imagine who would ever"--she bit it
again. "Mr. Ravenel, do you remember those lines of mine--

"'O we women are so blind'"?

"Yes. But don't call me Mr. Ravenel."

"Why, why not?"

"It sounds so cold." He shuddered.

"It isn't meant so. It's not in my nature to be cold. It's you who are
cold." She hushed as abruptly as a locust. A large man, wet with the
heat, stood saluting. Mr. Ravenel rose and introduced Mr. Gamble,
president of the road, a palpable, rank Westerner; whereupon it was she
who was cold. Mr. Gamble praised the "panorama gliding by."

"Yes." She glanced out over the wide, hot, veering landscape that rose
and sank in green and yellow slopes of corn, cotton, and wheat. The
president fanned his soaking shirt-collar and Mrs. March with a
palm-leaf fan.

"Mercury ninety-nine in Pulaski City," he said to Ravenel, and showed a
telegram. Mr. Ravenel began to ask if he might introduce----

"Mr. March! Well, you _have_ changed since the day you took Major Garnet
and Mr. Fair and I to see that view in the mountains! If anybody'd
a-told me that I'd ever be president of--Thanks, no sir." He wouldn't
sit. He'd just been sitting and talking, he said, "with the two
beauties, Miss Halliday and Miss Garnet." Didn't Mrs. March think them
such?

She confessed they looked strong and well, and sighed an unresentful
envy.

"Yes," said he, "they do, and I wou