over.

"Then this was not the first time?" He was still at the hot coals, both
hands outfanned, to screen his face from the blaze.

"No--I'm sorry to say it wasn't. I told her I would never fail her
again, and she forgave me, but I don't know what she'll do now. She
never forgives anybody who breaks his word--she's very queer about it.
That's what I came to see you about. I haven't slept much nights,
thinking it over, and so I had the mare saddled, as soon as it got
light, hoping you would be home. Todd thought you might be--he saw Dr.
Teackle's Joe, who said you were all coming to-day."

Again there was a long pause, during which Temple continued to study the
coals through his open fingers, the young man sitting hunched up in his
chair, his handsome head dropped between his shoulders, his glossy
chestnut hair, a-frouze with his morning ride, fringing his collar
behind.

"Harry," said St. George, knocking the ashes slowly from his pipe on the
edge of the fender, and turning his face for the first time toward
him,--"didn't I hear something before I went away about a ball at your
father's--or a dance--or something, when your engagement was to be
announced?"

The boy nodded.

"And was it not to be something out of the ordinary?" he continued,
looking at the boy from under his eyelids--"Teackle certainly told me
so--said that your mother had already begun to get the house in order--"