“You don’t say. Now, ain’t that too bad? But, girl o’ mine, I expect you were able to make it out, even if I did get the letters to milling around wrong. I meant them feelings all right. Outside of the spelling, did you have any objections to them, “How can I remember what you wrote in that letter several days ago?” “I’ll bet you know it by heart, honey, and, if you don’t, you’ll find it in your inside vest pocket, tucked away right close to your heart.” “It isn’t,” she denied, with a blush. “Sho! Pinned to your shirt then, little pardner. I ain’t particular which. Point is, if you need to refresh that ailin’ memory of yours, the document is—right handy. But you don’t need to. It just says one little sentence over and over again. All you have got to do is to say one little word, and you don’t have to say it but once.” “I don’t understand you,” her lips voiced. “You understand me all right. What my letter said was ‘I love you,’ and what you have got to say is: ‘Yes’.” “But that doesn’t mean anything.” “I’ll make out the meaning when you say it.” “Do I have to say it?” “You have to if you feel it.” Slowly the big brown eyes came up to meet his bravely. “Yes, Bucky.” He caught her hands and looked down into her pure, sweet soul. “I’m in luck,” he breathed deeply. “In golden luck to have you look at me twice. Are you sure?” “Sure. I loved you that first day I met you. I’ve loved you every day since,” she confessed simply. Full on the lips he kissed her. “Then we’ll be married as soon as we reach the Rocking Chair.” “But you once said you didn’t want to be my husband,” she taunted sweetly. “Don’t you remember? In the days when we were gipsies.” “I’ve changed my mind. I want to, and I’m in a hurry.” She shook her head. “No, dear. We shall have to wait. It wouldn’t be fair to my mother to lose me just as soon as she finds me. It is her right to get acquainted with me just as if I belonged to her alone. You understand what I mean, Bucky. She must not feel as if she never had found me, as if she never had been first with me. We can love each other more simply if she doesn’t know about you. We’ll have it for a secret for a month or two.” She put her little hand on his arm appealingly to win his consent. His eyes rested on it curiously, Then he took it in his big brown one and turned it palm up. Its delicacy and perfect finish moved him, for it seemed to him that in the contrast between the two hands he saw in miniature the difference of sex. His showed strength and competency and the roughness that comes of the struggle of life. But hers was strangely tender and confiding, compact of the qualities that go to make up the strength of the weak. Surely he deserved the worst if he was not good to her, a shield and buckler against the storms that must beat against them in the great adventure they were soon to begin together. Reverently he raised the little hand and kissed its palm.