attempt at her usual
briskness. "You caught me off my guard, Mr. Barrett. The fact is, I am
desperately homesick."

"Then why don't you go home?" he asked prosaically, for he had learned,
even in his slight experience at Quantuck, that it was not wise to take a
sentimental tone in addressing Phebe.

"I can't. I came down here for a year, and I must stick it out."

"What's the use?"

"Because I never do give in. It would be babyish. Besides, I am going to
be a doctor."

"I don't see why. It isn't in your line."

"I begin to think nothing is in my line," Phebe said forlornly.

"What else have you tried?"

"Nothing; but--I don't care about many things. I should like this, if it
weren't for the clinics and the students and such things, and if I could
be a little nearer home."

"When do you go home?"

"Christmas, if I live till then," Phebe laughed; but her mirth sounded
rather lugubrious. Then she added half-involuntarily, "I wonder what
you must think of me, Mr. Barrett. I'm not generally given to this
kind of a scene."

"No matter," he said soothingly, much as he might have spoken to a child;
"I am an old acquaintance, you know; and I never tell tales."

Suddenly Phebe laughed out blithely.

"What about the last night you were at Quantuck, Mr. Barrett?"

"Oh--well, that was different. How could I know that my muddy, murderous
Amazon was Miss Phebe McAlister in disguise?"

This time, they both laughed, and Phebe felt better.

"Let's walk on," she suggested. "This bridge is getting monotonous. Is
your arm quite strong again?"

"Perfectly. I think, if you'll let me, I can match your record in golf,
before I go back to New York."

"I didn't even know there were any links here," she said.

"There are, fine ones. One of my errands, to-day, was to make some kind
of an engagement with you. I've my reputation for laziness to redeem,
you know."

"I wish you wouldn't remind me of all the horrid things I said to you,"
she said contritely.

He looked at her in surprise. It was not like the Phebe McAlister he had
known, to speak like this. At Quantuck she had been cocksure, aggressive;
now she was gentler, more womanly. He missed something of the piquancy;
yet after all he rather liked the change.

"Really, aren't you enjoying it down here?" he asked.

"No; I am not. I'm all out of my element. I don't mind the work so much
as I do the people. They despise me as a worldling, and I don't like
being despise