“And _that_ I’d like to know,” said his sister earnestly. “There is another thing, Dorothy: Which of my sons is destined to fall in love with this very, very pretty girl you have invited here—Jennie Hapgood, I mean?” “Oh! they’re all doing it, are they?” grunted the major. “How about our Dorothy? Where does she come in? No mate for her?” “I think I shall probably become an old maid,” Dorothy Dale said, but with a conscious flush that made her aunt watch her in a puzzled way for some time. But the major put back his head and laughed delightedly. “No more chance of your remaining a spinster—when you are really old enough to be called one—than there is of my leading troops into battle again,” he declared with warmth. “Hey, Sister?” “Our Dorothy is too attractive I am sure to escape the chance to marry, at least,” said Aunt Winnie, still watching her niece with clouded gaze. “I wonder whence the right knight will come riding—from north, or south, east or west?” And in spite of herself Dorothy flushed up again at her aunt’s last word. It was a question oft-repeated in Dorothy Dale’s mind during the following days, this one regarding the state of mind of her two cousins and her two school friends. It had always seemed to Dorothy, whenever she had thought of it, that one of her cousins, either Ned or Nat, must in the end be preferred by Tavia. To think of Tavia’s really settling down to caring for any other man than Ned or Nat, was quite impossible. On the other hand, the boys had both shown a great fondness for the society of Jennie Hapgood when they were all at her home in Pennsylvania such a short time previous; and now that all four were together again Dorothy could not guess “which was which” as Tavia herself would have said. The boys did not allow Dorothy to be overlooked in any particular. She was not neglected in the least; yet she did, as the days passed, find more time to spend with her father and with her Aunt Winnie. “The little captain is getting more thoughtful. She is steadying down,” the major told Mrs. White. “But I wonder _why_?” was that good woman’s puzzled response. Dorothy Dale sitting by herself with a book that she was not reading or with fancywork on which she only occasionally took stitches, was entirely out of her character. She had never been this way before going to New York, Mrs. White was sure. There were several uncertainties upon the girl’s mind. One of them almost came to light when, after ten days, her letter addressed to “Mr. Garford Knapp, Desert City,” was returned to her by the post-office department, as instructed in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope. Her letter, warning Garry Knapp of the advantage the real estate men wished to take of him, would, after all, do him no good. He would never know that she had written. Perhaps her path and Garry Knapp’s would never cross again. CHAPTER XIII DOROTHY MAKES A DISCOVERY