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 looking around as if for some place to hide. "I got a letter this morning, he said he was coming, but I didn't think he'd have the nerve—nobody asked him to come. What in the world am I goin' to do?"

"That's what you've been watchin' that road so anxious for, is it? Well, he's here."

"Yes, darn him!" said Edith, vexed to her wits' end. "What am I goin' to do with him? That's what I want to know."

"Why, marry him," Mrs. Duke replied with easy conclusion. "You've got to marry some time, you might as well begin right now."

"Marry him?" Edith repeated in shocked surprise. "Why, I never had the slightest idea of marrying him! Mr. Rawlins"—in desperate appeal—"I only wrote to him for fun. I know you can understand how it was, Mr. Rawlins—I was so lonesome I'd 'a' corresponded with a dog!"

"Sure," said Rawlins cheerfully, immensely diverted by the situation, unprecedented in all his experience.

Edith was almost frantic. She stood there wringing her fingers, a look of humiliation, surprise and fright in her face that was truly moving. Mrs. Duke was answering the driver's waved salutations, which he now began to supplement by shouted hails, the sheepwoman giving them back to him as good as they came. The driver came on through the gate, rounded to and stopped.

The passenger got down from his uneasy seat, trying his legs tentatively with little bendings at the knees as if he had serious doubt of their working order after that rough ride. Mrs. Duke put her hand over her