"So many houses!" the girl communed with herself. "There's bound to be
a-many a person in all them houses," she went on. One could read the
loving outreach to all humanity in her tones.

"There is," put in Shade caustically. "There's many a rogue. You want to
look out for them tricky town folks--a girl like you."

Had he been more kind, he would have said, "a pretty girl like you." But
Johnnie did not miss it; she was used to such as he gave, or less.

"Come on," he urged impatiently. "We won't get no supper if you don't
hurry."

Supper! Johnnie drew in her breath and shook her head. With that scene
unrolled there, as though all the kingdoms of earth were spread before
them to look upon, she was asked to remember supper! Sighing, but
submissively, she moved to follow her guide, a reluctant glance across
her shoulder, when there came a cry something like that which the wild
geese make when they come over in the spring; and a thing with two
shining, fiery eyes, a thing that purred like a giant cat, rounded a
curve in the road and came to a sudden jolting halt beside them.

Shade stopped immediately for that. Johnnie did not fail to recognize
the vehicle. Illustrated magazines go everywhere in these days. In the
automobile rode a man, bare-headed, dressed in a suit of white flannels,
strange to Johnnie's eyes. Beside him sat a woman in a long, shimmering,
silken cloak, a great, misty, silver-gray veil twined round head and hat
and tied in a big bow under the chin. Johnnie had as yet seen nothing
more pretentious than the starched and ruffled flummeries of a small
mountain watering-place. This beautiful, peculiar looking garb had