“It isn't right, just the same. I--I don't suppose that's it altogether. I'm not trying to find out what the trouble is--but I wish you'd remember that I'm ready to do anything in the world that I can. You won't misunderstand that, I'm sure.” “No-o,” said Marian slowly. “But you see, there's nothing that you can do--except, perhaps, make things worse for me.” Then, to lighten that statement, she smiled at him. “Just now you can help me very much if you will go in and play something besides the Blue Danube Waltz. I've had to listen to that ever since Honora sent away for the music with the winter's grocery order, last October. Tell Honora you got her some mushrooms. And don't trust anyone. If you must bet on the horses, do so with your eyes open. They're cheats--and worse, some of them.” Bud's glance followed hers through the window that overlooked the corrals and the outbuildings. Lew was coming up to the house with a slicker over his head to keep off the drizzle. “Well, remember I'd do anything for you that I'd do for my mother or my sister Dulcie. And I wish you'd call on me just as they would, if you get in a pinch and need me. If I know you'll do that I'll feel a lot better satisfied.” “If I need you be sure that I shall let you know. And I'll say that 'It's a comfort to have met one white man,'” Marian assured him hurriedly, her anxious eyes on her approaching husband. She need not have worried over his coming, so far as Bud was concerned. For Bud was in the sitting-room and had picked Honey off the piano stool, had given her a playful shake and was playing the Blue Danube as its composer intended that it should be played, when Lew entered the kitchen and kicked the door shut behind him. Bud spent the forenoon conscientiously trying to teach Honey that the rests are quite as important to the tempo of a waltz measure as are the notes. Honey's talent for music did not measure up to her talent for coquetry; she received about five dollars' worth of instruction and no blandishments whatever, and although she no doubt profited thereby, at last she balked and put her lazy white hands over her ears and refused to listen to Bud's inexorable “One, two, three, one, two, three-and one, two, three.” Whereupon Bud laughed and returned to the bunk-house. He arrived in the middle of a heated argument over Jeff Hall's tactics in racing Skeeter, and immediately was called upon for his private, personal opinion of Sunday's race. Bud's private, personal opinion being exceedingly private and personal, he threw out a skirmish line of banter.