“I will not answer you,” the girl cried, a little wildly now, and began to sob. “Oh, Nat! Nat! I have thought of this so much. Your mother must ask me, or I can never tell you what I want to tell you!” Nat respected her desire and did not kiss her although she clung, sobbing, to him for some moments. But after she had wiped away her tears and had begun to joke again in her usual way, they went back to the house. And Nat White knew he was walking on air! He could not feel the path beneath his feet. He was obliged to go to town early the next morning, and when he returned, as we have seen, just before dinner, he brought the mail bag up from the North Birchland post-office. He could not understand Tavia’s attitude regarding Lance Petterby’s letter, and he was both hurt and jealous. Actually he was jealous! “Do you understand Tavia?” he asked his cousin Dorothy, right after dinner. “My dear boy,” Dorothy Dale said, “I never claimed to be a seer. _Who_ understands Tavia—fully?” “But you know her better than anybody else.” “Better than Tavia knows herself, perhaps,” admitted Dorothy. “Well, see here! I’ve asked her to marry me——” “Oh, Nat! my dear boy! I am so glad!” Dorothy cried, and she kissed her cousin warmly. “Don’t be so hasty with your congratulations,” growled Nat, still red and fuming. “She didn’t tell me ‘yes.’ I don’t know now that I want her to. I want to know what she means, getting letters from that fellow out West.” “Oh, Nat!” sighed Dorothy, looking at him levelly. “Are you _sure_ you love her?” He said nothing more, and Dorothy did not add a word. But Tavia waited in vain that evening for Mrs. White to come to her and ask the question which she had told Nat his mother must ask for him. CHAPTER XVIII CROSS PURPOSES Tavia was as loyal a girl as ever stepped in shoe-leather. That was an oft-repeated expression of Major Dale’s. He loved “the flyaway” for this very attribute. Tavia was now attempting to bring joy and happiness for Dorothy out of chaos. Therefore, she felt she dared take nobody into her confidence regarding Lance Petterby’s letter. She replied to Lance at once, explaining more fully about Garry Knapp, the land he was about to sell, and the fact that Eastern schemers were trying to obtain possession of Knapp’s ranch for wheat land and at a price far below its real worth. Satisfaction, Tavia might feel in this attempt to help Dorothy; but everything else in the world was colored blue—very blue, indeed! When one’s ear has become used to the clatter of a noisy little windmill, for instance, and the wind suddenly ceases and it remains calm, the cessation of the mill’s clatter is almost a shock to the nerves. This was about the way Tavia’s sudden shift of manner struck all those observant ones at The Cedars. As the season of joy and gladness and good-will approached, Tavia Travers sank lower and lower into a Slough of Despond.