Presently he laid her back very gently upon her pillow, and still knelt looking at her with his hand on her brow. “I’ve tired yuh,” he said, with earnest self-reproach. “I won’t do ’t ag’in, Emarine—I promise. When I looked ’n your eyes an’ see that yuh’d fergive me; when I felt your hand slip ’round my neck, like it ust to, an’ like I’ve b’en _starvin’_ to feel it fer a month, Emarine—I c’u’dn’t help it, nohow; but I won’t do ’t ag’in. Oh, to think that I’ve got choo back ag’in!” He laid his head down, still keeping his arm thrown, lightly and tenderly as a mother’s, over her. The sick girl looked at him. Her face settled into a look of stubbornness; the exaltation that had transfigured it a moment before was gone. “You’ll have to promise me,” she said, “about your mother, you know. I’ll have to be first.” “Yuh shall be, Emarine.” “You’ll have to promise that if there’s any knucklin’-down, she’ll do ’t, an’ not me.” He moved uneasily. “Oh, don’t choo worry, Emarine. It’ll be all right.” “Well, I want it settled now. You’ll have to promise solemn that you’ll stand by ev’rything I do, an’ let me have things my way. If you don’t, you can go back the way you come. But I know you’ll keep your word if you promise.” “Yes,” he said, “I will.” But he kept his head down and did not promise. “Well?” she said, and faint as she was, her voice was like steel. But still he did not promise. After a moment she lifted her hand and curved it about his throat again. He started to draw away, but almost instantly shuddered closer to her and fell to kissing the white lace around her neck. “Well,” she said, coldly, “hurry an’ make your choice. I hear mother a-comin’.” “Oh, Emarine!” he burst out, passionately. “I promise—I promise yuh ev’rything. My mother’s gittin’ old an’ childish, an’ it ain’t right, but I can’t give you up ag’in—I _can’t_! I promise—I swear!” Her face took on a tenderness worthy a nobler victory. She slipped her weak, bare arm up around him and drew his lips down to hers. An hour later he walked away from the house, the happiest man in Oregon City—or in all Oregon, for that matter. Mrs. Endey watched him through the vines. “Well, he’s a-walkin’ knee-deep in _promises_,” she reflected, with a comfortable laugh, as she sent a hot iron hissing over a newly sprinkled towel. “I guess that mother o’ his’n’ll learn a thing er two if she tries any o’ her back-sass with Emarine.” Emarine gained strength rapidly. Orville urged an immediate marriage, but Mrs Endey objected. “I won’t hear to ’t tell Emarine gits her spunk back,” she declared. “When she gits to settin’ her heels down the way she ust to before she got sick, she can git married. I’ll know then she’s got her spunk back.”