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 adoring eyes. There was room for all of them in her heart, along with him, Hartwell knew; room indeed for the whole world without crowding him and causing him one jealous pain.

"There's Mr. Stroud," said Sallie, as they approached the schoolhouse, "the principal of our school—my boss. I'd like you to meet him."

"I'll be proud to," Texas declared.

Stroud was locking the front door of the whitepainted, churchlike building in which he presided over the mental discipline of Cottonwood's youth. Hartwell saw that he was a tall, harsh-jointed man, surly of look, ram-faced, a dusting of white in his heavy, rough black hair. He looked around at them as he put the key in his pocket, a frown on his sour face, turned, and hurried off the other way, giving Sallie no chance to present her friend.

"He doesn't seem to be inclined to make my acquaintance, Miss Sallie," said Hartwell, feeling the cut deeply.

"Mr. Stroud is a peculiar man," she excused, flushing in humiliation for the necessity of making apology for the schoolmaster's boorish behavior.

"It galls a man to be in public disfavor to the depth that I have fallen, Miss Sallie; it hurts like saw-grass on the naked skin."

"I know it does, Mr. Hartwell, but as long as