"Chess ain't nothing but a regular kid," she said. "He was dying to
go, but he knew I couldn't, and he never said a word. Finally, my
boy Tom and his wife, and Len and Josie and the children, they all
drove by on their way to Pitcher's; and Len--he's a good deal
older'n Chess, you know--he says to me, 'You'd oughter leave Chess
come along with the rest of us, ma; jest because he's married ain't
no reason he's forgot how to dance!' Well, I burst right out
laughing, and I says, 'Why didn't he say he wanted to go?' and Chess
run upstairs for his other suit, and off they all went!"

There was nothing for it, then, but to wait for Lew Dinwoodie and
the news from Aunt Mat.

Mary Bell walked slowly back through the fragrant lanes, passed now
and then by a surrey loaded with joyous passengers already bound for
Pitcher's barn. She was at her own gate, when a voice calling her
whisked her about as if by magic.

"Hello, Mary Bell!" said Jim Carr, joining her. But she looked so
pretty in her blue cotton dress, with the yellow level of a field of
mustard-tops behind her, and beyond that the windbreak of gold-
tipped eucalyptus trees, that he went on almost confusedly, "You--
you look terribly pretty in that dress! Is that what you're going to
wear?"

"This!" laughed Mary Bell. And she raised her dancing eyes, to grow
a little confused in her turn. Nature, obedient to whose law
blossoms were whitening the fruit trees, wheat pricking through the
damp earth, robins mating in the orchards, had laid the first thread
of her great bond upon these two. They smiled silently at each