restrain her from casting him into outer darkness.

"I heard you were," she admitted.

"I thought it was yore oldest sister's pony," he bumbled on, feeling
it incumbent upon him to say something. "They told me something about
an old lady."

"Jane Morgan's the only other sister I have. Who told you this wild
tale?"

"Them," was his vague reply. He was not the man to give away the
jokers of Farewell. Old lady, indeed! Miss Blythe to the contrary
notwithstanding this girl was not within sight of middle-age. "Yeah,"
he went on, "they shore fooled me. Told me I'd taken an old maid's
hoss, and--"

"Oh, as far as that goes," said the girl, her long eyelashes demurely
drooping, "they told you the truth. I'm an old maid."

"You? Shucks!" Hugely contemptuous.

"Oh, but I am," she insisted, raising her eyes and tilting sidewise
her charming head. "I'm not married."

"Thank--" he began, impulsively, but choked on the second word and
gulped hard. "I mean," he resumed, hastily, "I don't understand why I
never saw you before. I was here once, but you weren't around."

"When were you here?... Why, that was two years ago. I was only a kid