The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-08-11
E Words 15c Farmer Classified Ads Phone 12OS

as respective reasons her inability to be with him and the fact that she was so entirely his. Because he would not let himself hope this time he was not disappointed, or at least so he told himself, when he found only Dexter Allison with Caleb the next afternoon near 6. And on a sudden thought his eyes went rowing around the room then, looking for Archibald Wicker sham. But Miss Sarah gave him no time for a protracted scrutiny.
 "Your room is ready, Stephen she told him and steered him toward the stairs "YOu have an hour in which to dress, and you know already that am old maidenishly strict"
 And then, quarters of an hour later, when he had dressed and turned to the stairway Barbara was there at the foot of the flight waiting for him to appear. In a little low pink satin gown that made rounded her slenderness- made her appear even smaller than she was-she gave him an elaborate courtesy from the main floor and flung up at him her laughter.
 "Merry Christmas, Sir Galahad" she called.
 Steve, who was only dimly aware of the fact that Garry and Fat Joe had arrived, the latter guilty of his first dinner jacket and enormously proud of hi. guilt, stood looking at Barbara while che was chattering at him with out hearing distinctly word she spoke.
 "You look as though I were . wraith," the girl accused him. Am % pale after few weeks of sorLish- cated city airT'
 q thought yeu looked like-shall l tell you what thought7'
 "Most certainly" she was forced to insist. "WaSn't it a bald enough tnvt- tation for . pretty speechT'
 T thought you looked Nike . small pink bon bon,' responded Steve leisure ly, and, while the rest laughed at her discomflture, Fat Joe leaned over and nudged Garry
 "What'd tell youT' he demanded. ~What'd tell youi Say, ain't he working well tonghtr'
 There was no keeping the girl within doors after dinner was over. She ran upstairs and changed into moccasins and white blanket coat and skirt that barely met the moecasin tops halfway. And Steve, who had changed, too, and was waiting for her when she came down.. had knetted crimson scarf about the middle of his belted jacket to match the white one twisted about her threat.
 Tho man and girl climbed far that night in quite unbroken silence. They had reached the crest of the first hill and stopped with the higher ridges in front Of them, black bulks fiAgreed with white, before Barbara decided that, she would have to make him talk. From the first he talked ftfuIly that night. On other oceasions she had no t1ced how his mind seemed to veer, wMmsically, from one topic to aneth- CT with little apparent continuity of thought, only to swing back again just when she was beginning te feel that she had lost. the thread se inference to point his argument with parallels. that were new and delightful wfsdoms to her ears. But tonight his grave voiced dfvergences oftener than not left her thoughts behind his thoughts. "It is a very easy country to get lest in," he remarked when he had had to insist that his sense of direction and not hers should be the one to be trusted.
 "It doesn't seem complicated" he pondered ITO ,man who has come into the world with his sense of north and south and east and west all safely relegated to- his backbone instead of having to depend upon the fighty functions of his brain for his guide it's about the simplest thing there is- He finds his way without thinking abort the lay of the land or moss on Ae trees or the sun or stars. But the oth- CT one-the one who has to stop and reason that he, must travel 90 many miles to the west te reach home in the afternoon because he came that many in the ncrning-why, he even gets to doubting his compass, until night catches him without q roof over his head and no wood collected fer a campfire"
 ''I shall try to remember that" she answered soberly. sTf ever am lest I-1 shall try to wait confidently for daylight and keep my eyes to the fore ? | She was near to tears when he steep | ed and knelt in the snow to tighten . | thong dipping fresn one webbed foot l Below them stretched plain of shim- merinx frost points, bounded by in scrutabse walls of black timber. Some. where within the warmer heart of a swamp fox yapped hunsEily; some I where within her own heart has wlE1m- | sscnl discsurse had awakened . sease | of the mystery of his wflderneH-its l frfendship for those who love it--its implacable enrnity for those who dc not unde-stand And he.lesked up just
 when that emotion came flooding into | her face.
 "It is .wonderful-wonderfnl-won.
 derfulr' she brcathed, throwing out
 both arms with that ecstatic inpulsivs ness which he knew 50 well. Nov
 know why you said men always re.
 turn to it once they have felt its spell.
 "You are lovelier than you know!'
 came back from him, almost eruday
 again, and she could not parry with
 hghtness 50 swift and strained . speech.