“Won't you get in and let me drive you home, Miss Loo?” His victory had put him in a good humour, without, however, altering his critical estimate of the girl. The quiet, controlled tone of his voice chilled and pained her, but her emotions were too recent and too acute to be restrained. “Oh, George!” she said, leaning forward against the buggy, and scanning his face intently. “How can you speak so? You ain't hurt, are you?” “No!” he answered lightly. “You didn't expect I should be, did you?” The tone was cold, a little sarcastic even. Again she felt hurt; she scarcely knew why; the sneer was too far-fetched for her to understand it. “Go and put the horse up, and then come back. I'll wait right here for you.” He did as he was told, and in ten minutes was by her side again. After a long pause, she began, with quivering lips: “George, I'm sorry--so sorry. 'Twas all my fault! But I didn't know “--and she choked down a sob--“I didn't think. “I want you to tell me how your sisters act and--an' what they wear and do. I'll try to act like them. Then I'd be good, shouldn't I? “They play the pianner, don't they?” He was forced to confess that one of them did. “An' they talk like you?” “Yes.” “An' they're good always? Oh, George, I'm jest too sorry for anythin', an' now--now I'm too glad!” and she burst into tears. He kissed and consoled her as in duty bound. He understood this mood as little as he had understood her challenge to love. He was not in sympathy with her; she had no ideal of conduct, no notion of dignity. Some suspicion of this estrangement must have dawned upon the girl, or else she was irritated by his acquiescence in her various phases of self-humiliation. All at once she dashed the tears from her eyes, and winding herself out of his arms, exclaimed: “See here, George Bancroft! I'll jest learn all they know--pianner and all. I ken, and I will. I'll begin right now. You'll see!” And her blue eyes flashed with the glitter of steel, while her chin was thrown up in defiant vanity and self-assertion. He watched her with indifferent curiosity; the abrupt changes of mood repelled him. His depreciatory thoughts of her, his resolution not to be led away again by her beauty influencing him, he noticed the keen hardness of the look, and felt, perhaps out of a spirit of antagonism, that he disliked it. After a few quieting phrases, which, though they sprang rather from the head than the heart, seemed to achieve their aim, he changed the subject, by pointing across the creek and asking: “Whose corn is that?” “Father's, I guess!” “I thought that was the Indian territory?” “It is!” “Is one allowed to sow corn there and to fence off the ground? Don't the Indians object?” “'Tain't healthy for Indians about here,” she answered carelessly, “I hain't ever seen one. I guess it's allowed; anyhow, the corn's there an' father'll have it cut right soon.”