“Well, don't you let him nor any one else discourage you,” said the girl, her eyes flashing. “A man who listens to other people and puts his own ideas aside is unworthy of the brain God gave him. There is another thing”--her voice sank lower and her eyes sought the ground. “Rayburn Miller is a fine, allround man, but he is not perfect by any means. He talks freely to me, you know; he's known me since I was knee-high. Well, he told me--he told me of the talk he had with you at the dance that night. Oh, that hurt me--hurt me!” “He told you that!” exclaimed Alan, in surprise. “Yes, and it actually disgusted me. Does he think all men ought to act on that sort of advice? He might, for he has made an unnatural man of himself, with all his fancies for new faces; but you are not that kind, Alan, and I'm sorry you and he are so intimate--not that he can influence you _much_, but he has already, _in a way_, and that has pained me deeply.” “He has influenced me?” cried Alan, in surprise. “I think you are mistaken.” “You may not realize it, but he has,” said Dolly, with gentle and yet unyielding earnestness. “You see, you are so very sensitive that it would not be hard to make you believe that a young man ought not to keep on caring for a girl whose parents object to his attentions.” “Ah!” He had caught her drift. There was a pause. At the foot of the hill a little brook ran merrily over the water-browned stones, and its monotonous lapping could be heard distinctly. Under the trees across the open some of the couples had drawn together and were singing: “I see the boat go 'round the bend, Good-bye, my lover, good-bye.” Dolly had said exactly what he had never hoped to hear her say, and the fact of her broaching such a subject in such a frank, determined way sent a glow of happiness all over him. “I don't think,” he began, thoughtfully, “that Rayburn or any man could keep me from”--he looked into her full, expectant eyes, and then plunged madly--“could keep me from caring for you, from loving you with all my heart, Dolly; but it really is a terrible thing to know that you are robbing a girl of not only the love of her parents but her rightful inheritance, when, when”--he hurried on, seeing that an impulse to speak was urging her to protest--“when you haven't a cent to your name, and, moreover, have a black eye from your father's mistakes.”