Her emphasis was approved by the major. “The little captain is some girl,” he said, chuckling. “Beg pardon! woman grown, eh, Sister?” Nor was his approval merely of Dorothy’s surface qualities. He knew that his pretty daughter was a much deeper thinker than most girls of her age, and he had seldom interfered in any way with Dorothy’s personal decisions on any subject. “Let her find out for herself. She won’t go far wrong,” had often been his remark at first when his sister had worried over Dorothy in her school days. And so the girl developed into something that not all girls are—an original thinker. Knowing her as the major did and trusting in her good sense so fully, he was less startled, perhaps, than he would otherwise have been when Dorothy took him into her confidence regarding Garry Knapp. Tavia had refrained from joking about the Westerner from the first. Little had been said before the family about their adventures in New York. Therefore, the major was not prepared in the least for the introduction of the subject. Perhaps it would not have been introduced in quite the way it was had it not grown out of another matter. It came the day after Christmas—that day in which everybody is tired and rather depressed because of the over-exertion of celebrating the feast of good Kris Kringle. Dorothy was busy at the sewing basket beside her father’s comfortable chair. She knew that Tavia was writing letters and just at this moment Major Dale dropped his paper to peer out of the window. “There goes Nat—off for a tramp, I’ll be bound. And he’s alone,” the major said. “Yes,” agreed Dorothy without looking up. “And Ned and that Jennie girl are in the library, and you’re here,” pursued the major, with raised eyebrows. “Where is Tavia?” She told him; but she refrained again from looking up, and he finally bent forward in his chair and thrust a forefinger under her chin, raising it and making her look at him. “Say! what is the matter with Tavia and Nat?” he asked. “Are you sure there is anything the matter, Major?” Dorothy responded. “Can’t fool me. They’re at outs. And you, Captain? Is that what makes you so grave, my dear?” “No, Daddy,” she said, putting down her work and looking into his rugged face this time of her own volition. “Something personal, my dear?” “Very personal, Daddy,” calling him by the intimate name the children used. “I—I think I—I am in love.” He neither made a joke of it nor appeared astonished. He just eyed her quietly and nodded. The flush mounted into her face and she glowed like a red rose. After all, it is not the easiest thing in the world to turn the heart out for others to look at, even the dearest of others. “I think I am in love. And the young man is poor—and—and I am afraid our money is going to stand between him and me.” “My dear Dorothy,” said the major, “are you really in love with somebody, or in love with love?”