le ahead, if you like,
only let me finish. You know we must take some risks, and while I thank
him--and you, too, even if you do speak merely for your father's sake--I
tell you the best moves a man ever makes are those he makes against the
warnings of his friends! 'Try not the pass, the old man said,' don't you
know?"

"This wasn't an old man."

"Wasn't it General Halliday?"

"No, sir, it was the younger Mr. Fair."

"Henry Fair," said John very quietly. He slackened his pace. He did not
believe Fair cared that much for him; but it was easy to suppose he
might seize so good a chance to say a word for Miss Garnet's own sake.

"Miss Barb, I don't doubt he thinks what he says. I see now why he
failed to subscribe to our stock, after coming so far entirely, or
almost entirely, to do it. He little knows how he disappointed me. I
didn't want his capital, Miss Barb, half as much as his fellowship in a
beautiful enterprise."

"He was as much disappointed as you, Mr. March; I happen to know it."

John looked at his informant; but her head was down once more.

"Well," he said, cheerily, "I'll just have to wait till--till I--till
I've shown"--a beggar child was annoying him--"shown Fair and all of
them that I'm not so green as I----" He felt for a coin, stood still,
and turned red. "Miss--Miss Barb----" A smile widened over his face, and
he burst into a laugh that grew till the tears came.

"What's the matter?" asked Barbara anxiously, yet laughing with him.

"Oh, I--I've let somebody pick my pockets. Yes, every cent's gone and my
ticket to New York. I had no luck here yesterday, and I was going on to
New York to-morrow." He laughed again, but ceased abruptly. "Good
gracious, Miss Barb! my watch!--my father's watch!" The broad smile on
his lips could not hide the grief in his eyes.

LX.

A PERFECT UNDERSTANDING

As they resumed their way Barbara did most of the talking. She tried so
hard to make his loss appear wholly attributable to her, that only the
sweetness of her throat and chin and the slow smoothness of her words
saved her from seeming illogical. She readily got his admission that the
theft might have been done in that archway as the engine rushed by. Very
good! And without her, she reasoned, he would not have stopped. "Or, if
you had stopped," she softly droned, with her eyes on her steps, "you
would have had----"

"Oh, now, what would I have had?"

"Your hands in your pockets."

"That's not my