and _clean_!"

Van smiled.

"It's a hungry-looking country to me--looks as if it has eaten all the
trees. If it makes you think of breakfast, or just plain coffee and
rolls, I've found a place I hope you'll like, with a friend I didn't
know was here."

"You are very kind, I'm sure," she said. "I'm afraid we're a great
deal of trouble."

"That's what women were made for," he answered her frankly, a bright,
dancing light in his eyes. "They couldn't help it if they would, and I
guess they wouldn't if they could."

"Oh, indeed?" She shot him a quick glance, half a challenge. "I
_guess_ if you don't mind we won't go to the place you've found, for
breakfast, this morning."

"You'd better guess again," he answered, and taking her arm, in a
masterful way that bereft her of the power of speech or resistance, he
marched her briskly down the slope and straight towards Mrs. Dick's.

"Thank your stars you've struck a place like this," he said. "If you
don't I'll have to thank them for you."

"Perhaps I ought to thank you first," she ventured smilingly. It would
have seemed absurd to resent his boyish ways.