“I don’t care if I do freeze,” he declared recklessly. “You’ve got to answer me here and now, Tavia.” “Have I?” with a toss of her head. “Who are _you_ to command _me_, I’d like to know?” Then with sudden seriousness and a flood of crimson in her face that fairly glorified Tavia Travers: “How about that request I told you your mother must make, Nat? I meant it.” “See here! See here!” cried the young man, tearing off his gloves and dashing them into the snow while he struggled to open his bearskin coat and then the coat beneath. From an inner pocket he drew forth a letter and opened it so she could read. “See!” Nat cried. “It’s from mother. She wrote it to me while I was in Boston—before old Ned’s telegram came. See what she says here—second paragraph, Tavia.” The girl read the words with a little intake of her breath: “And, my dear boy, I know that you have quarreled in some way and for some reason with our pretty, impetuous Tavia. Do not risk your own happiness and hers, Nathaniel, through any stubbornness. Tavia is worth breaking one’s pride for. She is the girl I hope to see you marry—nobody else in this wide world could so satisfy me as your wife.” That was as far as Tavia could read, for her eyes were misty. She hung her head like a child and whispered, as Nat approached: “Oh, Nat! Nat! how I doubted her! She is _so_ good!” He put his arms about her, and she snuggled up against the bearskin coat. “Say! how about _me_?” he demanded huskily. “Now that the Widder White has asked you to be her daughter-in-law, don’t I come into the picture at all?” Tavia raised her head, looked at him searchingly, and suddenly laid her lips against his eager ones. “You’re—you’re the _whole_ picture for me, Nat!” she breathed. CHAPTER XXIX SOMETHING AMAZING Now that Garry Knapp had left The Cedars—had passed out of her life forever perhaps—Dorothy Dale found herself in a much disturbed state of mind. She did not wish to sit and think over her situation. If she did she knew she would break down. She was tempted—oh! sorely tempted—to write Garry Knapp all that was in her heart. Her cheeks burned when she thought of doing such a thing; yet, after all, she was fighting for happiness and as she saw it receding from her she grew desperate. But Dorothy Dale had gone as far as she could. She had done her best to bring the man she loved into line with her own thought. She had the satisfaction of believing he felt toward her as she did toward him. But there matters stood; she could do no more. She did not let her mind dwell upon this state of affairs; she could not and retain that calm expected of Dorothy Dale by the rest of the family at The Cedars. It is what is expected of us that we accomplish, after all. She had never been in the habit of giving away to her feelings, even as a schoolgirl. Much more was expected of her now.