d. The main purpose of her third visit had been to
attend with Mrs. Fair a reception given by that lady's club. It had
ended with dancing; but Mr. Fair had not danced to suit her and Mr.
March had not danced at all, but had allowed himself to betray
dejection, and had torn her dress. Back at college she had told the
favorite classmate how she had chided Mr. March for certain trivial
oversights and feared she had been severe; and when the classmate
insisted she had not been nearly severe enough she said good-night and
went to her room to mend the torn dress; and as she sewed she gnawed her
lip, wished she had never left Suez, and salted her needle with slow
tears.

Thus ended the sixth week--stop! I was about to forget the thing for
which I began the chapter--and, anyhow, this was not Saturday, it was
Friday! While Barbara was so employed, John March, writing to Henry Fair
from somewhere among the Rhode Island cotton-spinners, said:

"To-night I go to New York, where I have an important appointment
to-morrow noon, but I can leave there Monday morning at five and be in
Springfield at ten-twenty-five. If you will get there half an hour later
by the train that leaves Boston at seven, I will telegraph the
Springfield men to meet us in the bank at eleven. They assure me that if
you confirm my answers to their questions they will do all I've asked.
Please telegraph your reply, if favorable, to my New York address."

About three o'clock of Saturday March was relieved of much anxiety by
receipt of Fair's telegram. It was a long time before Monday morning,
but in a sudden elation he strapped his valise and said to the
porter--"Grand Central Depot."

"Back to Boston again?"

"Not much! But I'm not going to get up at four o'clock Monday morning
either."

In Boston that evening a servant of the Fairs told one of their familiar
friends who happened to drop in, that Mr. Fair, senior, was in, but that
Mr. Henry had gone to spend Sunday at some Connecticut River town, he
was not sure which, but--near Springfield.

LXX.

ACROSS THE MEADOWS

Next morning, John March, for the first time in his life, saw and heard
the bobolink.

"Ah! you turncoat scoundrel!" he laughed in a sort of fond dejection,
"you've come North to be a lover too, have you? You were songless enough
down South!"

But the quivering gallant went singing across the fields, too drunk with
the joy of loving to notice accusers.

On the previous evening