"Married? Yes, to that farm of her aunt's! I reckon that's the only
thing she cares for."

Courtland looked up, recovering his usual cheerful calm. "Well, I think
that after luncheon I'll pay my respects to her family. From what you
have just told me the farm is certainly an experiment worth seeing. I
suppose your father will have no objection to give me a letter to Miss
Dows?"


CHAPTER II.


Nevertheless, as Colonel Courtland rode deliberately towards Dows'
Folly, as the new experiment was locally called, although he had not
abated his romantic enthusiasm in the least, he was not sorry that he
was able to visit it under a practical pretext. It was rather late now
to seek out Miss Sally Dows with the avowed intent of bringing her a
letter from an admirer who had been dead three years, and whose memory
she had probably buried. Neither was it tactful to recall a sentiment
which might have been a weakness of which she was ashamed. Yet,
clear-headed and logical as Courtland was in his ordinary affairs, he
was nevertheless not entirely free from that peculiar superstition which
surrounds every man's romance. He believed there was something more than
a mere coincidence in his unexpectedly finding himself in such favorable
conditions for making her acquaintance. For the rest--if there was any
rest--he would simply trust to fate. And so, believing himself a
cool, sagacious reasoner, but being actually, as far as Miss Dows was
concerned, as blind, fatuous, and unreasoning as any of her previous