*ing over pasture lands. I do love the country!"

she exclaimed, fervently.

"So do I," laughed Robert, "but the country has its tragedies, too. For example: my old-maid Aunt once made me weed the onion bed on circus day. I would have had to ride a stick horse to the town, four miles away, where the tent was pitched, but children would do almost anything to get to a circus."

"Yet you did not get to that one?" asked Cherokee, gaily.

"No, and for fifteen years I treasured that against my Aunt."

"And I should not wonder if you hold it still."

He dropped his voice to the register of tenderness and said, sadly: "I hold nothing against her now. The dear old creature had sorrow enough—she died unmarried."

Then they came to the home he was to show her.

After that there was a lull in the conversation.