ely. "Why, Mr. Fair, how much this creek and road are like ours
at Rosemont!"

"It's the same creek," called March.

By and by they left it and rode abreast through woods. There was much
badinage, in which Barbara took the aggressive, with frequent hints at
Fannie that gave John delicious pain and convinced him that Miss Garnet
was, after all, a fine girl. Fair became so quiet that John asked him
two or three questions.

"O no!" laughed Fair, he could stay but a day or two. He said he had
come this time from "quite a good deal" of a stay in Texas and Mexico,
and his father had written him that he was needed at home. "Which is
absurd, you know," he added to Barbara.

"Per-fect-ly," she said. But he would not skirmish.

"Yes," he replied. "But all the same I have to go. I'm sorry."

"We're sorry at Rosemont."

"I shall be sorry at Widewood," echoed March.

"I regret it the more," responded Fair, "from having seen Widewood so
much and yet so little. Miss Garnet believes in a great future for
Widewood. It was in trying to see something of it that we lost----"

But Barbara protested. "Mr. Fair, we rode hap-hazard! We simply chanced
that way! What should I know, or care, about lands? You're confusing me
with pop-a! Which is doub-ly ab-surd!"

"Most assuredly!" laughed the young men.

"You know, Mr. March, pop-a's so proud of the Widewood tract that I
believe, positively, he's jealous of anyone's seeing it without him for
a guide. You'd think it held the key of all our fates."

"Which is triply absurd!"

"Superlatively!" drawled Barbara, and laughing was easy. They came out
upon the pike as March was saying to Fair:

"I'd like to show you my lands; they're the key of my fate, anyhow."

"They're only the lock," said Barbara, musingly. "The key
is--elsewhere."

John laughed. He thought her witty, and continued with her, though the
rest of the way to Rosemont was short and plain. Presently she turned
upon the two horsemen a pair of unaggressive but invincible eyes,
saying, languorously,

"Mr. March, I want you to show Widewood to Mr. Fair--to-morrow. Pop-a's
been talking about showing it to him, but I want him to see it with just
you alone."

To Fair there always seemed a reserve of merriment behind Miss Garnet's
gravity, and a reserve of gravity behind her brightest gayety. This was
one thing that had drawn him back to Rosemont. Her ripples never hid her
depths, yet she was never too deep to ripple. I give