candidly."

"Well, no. I can't say that I have."

"Then," said Christie, "why in the name of all that's preposterous, do
they persist in pairing me off with the least interesting man of the
lot?"

Jessie leaped from the table.

"Come now," she said, with a little nervous laugh, "he's not so bad as
all that. You don't know him. But what does it matter now, as long as
we're not going to see them any more?"

"They're coming here for the ride to-day," said Christie resignedly.
"Father thought it better not to break it off at once."

"Father thought so!" echoed Jessie, stopping with her hand on the door.

"Yes; why do you ask?"

But Jessie had already left the room, and was singing in the hall.


CHAPTER IV


The afternoon did not, however, bring their expected visitors. It
brought, instead, a brief note by the hands of Whiskey Dick from
Fairfax, apologizing for some business that kept him and George Kearney