the prise 'n' sails through bloody seas? Sing that,
Capm! I'll line it! You sing it!" Shotwell sang; his companion wept. So
they closed their sad festivities; not going to bed, but sleeping on
their arms, like the stern heroes they were.

"Why, look at the droves of ow own people!" laughed Captain Champion at
the laying of the corner-stone. And after it, "Yes, Mr. Fair's address
was fi-ine! But faw me, Miz Ravenel, do you know I liked just those few
words of John March evm betteh?"

"They wa'n't so few," drawled Lazarus Graves, "but what they put John on
the shelf."

The hot Captain flashed. "Politically, yes, seh! On the _top_ shelf,
where we saave up ow best men faw ow worst needs, seh!"

Fair asked March to take a walk. They went without a word until they sat
down on the edge of a wood. Then Fair said,

"March, I have a question to ask you. Why don't you try?"

"Fair, she won't ever let me! She's as good as told me, up and down, I
mustn't. And _now_ I can't! I'm penniless, and part of her inheritance
will be my lost lands. I can't ignore that; I haven't got the moral
courage! Besides, Fair, I know that if she takes you, there's an end of
all her troubles and a future worthy of her--as far as any future can
be. What sort of a fellow would I be--Oh, mind you! if I had the
faintest reason to think she'd rather have me than you, I George!
sir----" He sprang up and began to spurn the bark off a stump with a
strength of leg that made it fly. "Fair, tell me! Are you going to offer
yourself, notwithstanding all?"

"Yes. Yes; if the letter I expect from home to-morrow, and which I
telegraphed them to write, is what I make no doubt it will be; yes."

March gazed at his companion and slowly and soberly smiled. "Fair," he
softly exclaimed, "I wish I had your head! Lord! Fair, I wish I had your
chance!"

"Ah! no," was the gentle reply, "I wish one or the other were far
better."

* * * * *

A third sun had set before Barbara walked again at the edge of the
grove. Two or three hours earlier her father had at last come home, and
as she saw the awful change in his face and the vindictive gleam with
which he met her recognition of it, she knew they were no longer father
and daughter. The knowledge pierced like a slow knife, and yet brought a
sense of relief--of release--that shamed her until she finally fled into
the open air as if from suffocation. There she watched the west grow
dark and