down at the floor to keep from saying more than he dared. When he looked up again he changed the subject.

66

Miss Sallie, I feel like I've known you ever since I was born." She blushed and made no reply.

Dinner was announced, and Gaston was amazed to see Allan McLeod enter chattering familiarly with the General. He seemed on the most intimate terms with the family and his eye lingered fondly on Sallie's face in a way that somehow Gaston resented as an impertinence. I didn't even know you were acquainted with the Hon. Allan McLeod, Miss Sallie," said Gaston as they entered the parlour alone.

"Yes, he was a sort of ward of Papa's when he was a boy. Papa hates his politics, but he has always been in and out almost like one of the family since I can remember. I think he's a fascinating man, don't you?" "I do, but I don't like him."

"Well, he's a great friend of mine, you mustn't quarrel."

Gaston went to the hotel with his brain in a whirl wondering just what she meant. It was nearly twelve o'clock before he left the General's house. How he had passed these eleven hours he could not imagine. They seemed like eleven minutes in one way. In another he seemed to have lived a lifetime that day.

"By George, she's an angel!" he kept saying over and over to himself as he climbed to his room forgetting the elevator.

W

CHAPTER VI

BESIDE BEAUTIFUL WATERS

HEN Gaston tried to sleep, he found it impossible. His brain was on fire, every nerve quivering with some new mysterious power and his imagination soaring on tireless wings. He rolled and tossed an hour, then got up, and sat by his open window looking out over the city sleeping in the still white moonlight. He looked into the mirror and

grinned.

What is the matter with me! he exclaimed. believe I'm going crazy.'

He sat down and tried to work the thing out by the formulas of cold reason. It's perfectly absurd to say I'm in love. My wild romancing about a passion that will grasp all life in its torrent sweep is only a boy's day dream. The world is too prosy for that now."

Yet in spite of this argument the room seemed as bright as day, and the moon was only a pale sister light to the radiance from the face of the girl he had seen that day. Her face seemed to him smiling close into his now. The light of her eyes was tender and soothing like the far away memory of his mother's voice.

"It's a passing fancy," he said at last, after he had sat an hour dreaming and dreaming of scenes he dared not frame in words even alone. He stood by the window again.

"What a beautiful old world this is after all!" he thought as he gazed out on the tops of the oaks whose

young leaves were softly sighing at the touch of the night winds. Turning his eye downward to the street he saw the men loading the morning papers into the wagons for the early mail.

"I wonder what sort of report of my speech they put in?" he exclaimed. Unable to sleep he hastily dressed, went down and bought a paper.

On the front page was a flattering portrait, two columns in width, with a report of his speech filling the entire page, and an editorial review of a column and a half. He was hailed as the coming man of the state in this editorial, which contained the most extravagant praise. He knew it was the best thing he had ever done, and he felt for the minute proud of himself and his achievement. This contemplation of his own greatness quieted his nerves and he fell asleep. He was awakened by the first rolling of carts on the pavements at dawn. He knew he had not slept more than two hours but he was as wide awake as though he had slept soundly all night.

"I must be threatened with that spell of fever Auntie has been worrying about since I was a boy!" he laughed as he slowly dressed.

"It's now six o'clock, and my train don't leave till nine," he mused. "But am I going on that train, that's the question?"

The fact was, now he came to think of it, there was no need of hurrying home. He would stay a while and look this mystery in the face until he was disillusioned. Besides he wanted to find out what McLeod's visit meant. He had a vague feeling of uneasiness when he recalled the way McLeod had assumed about the General's house. He had told Sallie he must hurry home on the morning's train for no earthly reason than that he had intended to do so when he came.

So after breakfast he wrote her a little note.

"MY DEAR MISS WORTH,

My train left me. Will you have compassion on a stranger in a strange city and let me call to see you again to-day? CHARLES GAston."

He waited impatiently until he heard his train leave, and then told the boy to make tracks for the General's house.

A peal of laughter rang through the hall when Sallie's dancing eyes read that note.

"Oh! the storyteller!" she cried.

And this was the answer she sent back.

66

Certainly. Come out at once. I'll take you buggy driving all by myself over a lovely road up the river. I do this in acknowedgment of the gracious flattery you pay me in the story you told about the train. Of course I know you waited till the train left before you sent the note. SALLIE WORTH."

"Now I wonder if that young rascal of a boy told her I wrote that note an hour ago? I'll wring his neck if he did. Come here boy!"

The negro came up grinning in hopes of another quarter.

"Did you tell that young lady anything about when I wrote that note?"

66

Na-sah! Nebber tole her nuffin. She des laugh and laugh fit ter kill herse'f des quick es she reads de note." Gaston smiled and threw him another tip.

"Yassah, she's a knowin' lady, sho's you bawn, I been dar lots er times fo' dis!"

Gaston was tempted to ask him for whom he carried those former messages. He walked with bounding steps, his being tingling to his finger tips with the joy of living. The avenue leading the full length of the city toward

the General's house was two miles long before it reached the woods at the gate. It seemed only a step this morning.

As he passed through the cool shade of the woods a squirrel was playing hide and seek with his mate on the old crooked fence beside the road. His little nimble mistress flew up a great tree to its topmost bough and chattered and laughed at her lover as he scrambled swiftly after her. She waited until he was just reaching out his arm to grasp her, and then with another scream of laughter leaped straight out into the air to another tree top, and then another and another until lost in the heart of the forest.

"I wonder if that's going to be my fate!" he mused as he turned into the gateway.

Again the majestic beauty of that gleaming mass of ivory on the hill with its green background swept his soul with its power. It seemed a different shade of colour now that he saw it with the sun at another angle. Its surface seemed to have the soft sheen of creamy velvet.

He paused and sighed, "Why should I be so poor! If I only had a house like that I'd turn that big banquet hall on the left wing into a library, and I'd ask no higher heaven.

And he fell to wondering if it would really be worth the having without the face and voice of the girl who was there within waiting for him. No, he was sure of it this morning for the first time in his life. The certainty of this conviction brought to his heart a feeling of loneliness and despair. When he thought of his abject poverty and the long years of struggle before him, and of that beautiful accomplished young woman rich, petted, the belle of the city, the gulf that separated their lives seemed impassable.

"I'm playing with fire!" he said to himself as he