He was well enough now to receive his friends on brief visits, and Trowbridge was the first to drop in. Dorothy did not mind having Lem, but she was not sure she enjoyed having the others, for she had found the close association with Gordon so very sweet; but she told herself that she must not be foolish, and she welcomed all who came. Naturally so pretty a girl doing the honors of the house so well, and so closely linked with the fortunes of the host, gave rise to the usual deductions. Many were the quiet jokes which the cattlemen passed amongst themselves over the approaching wedding, and the festival they would make of the occasion. "Well, good-by, Miss Purnell," said Trowbridge one day, smiling and yet with a curiously pathetic droop to his mouth. "_Miss_ Purnell?" Dorothy exclaimed, in the act of shaking hands. "That's what I said." He nodded wisely. "Good-by, Miss Purnell." Refusing to be envious of his friend's good fortune, he laughed cheerily and was gone before she saw through his little joke. The next afternoon she was reading to Gordon when the far-away look in his eyes told her that he was not listening. She stopped, wondering what he could be dreaming about, and missing the sound of her voice, he looked toward her. "You weren't even listening," she chided, smilingly. "I was thinking that I've never had a chance to get into those church-going clothes," he said, with a return of the old whimsical mood. "But I look pretty clean, don't I?" "Yes," she answered, suddenly shy. "Hair brushed? Tie right? Boots clean?" To each question she had nodded assent. Her heart was beating very fast and the rosy color was mounting to the roots of her hair, but she refused to lower her eyes in panic. She looked him straight in the face with a sweet, tender, cool gaze. "Yes," she said again. "Well, then, give me your hand." He hitched his rocker forward so as to get closer to her, and took both her hands in this. "Dorothy, I've got something to tell you. I guess you know what it is." Her eyes suddenly became a little moist as she playfully shook her head. "Oh, yes, you do, dear, but I've got to say it, haven't I? I love you, Dorothy. It sort of chokes me to say it because my heart's so full." "Mine is, too," she whispered, a queer catch in her voice. "But are you sure you love me?" "Sure? Why, that other was only...." Withdrawing her hands from his, she laid her fingers for an instant on his lips. "I want to show you something," she said. She went to the bureau, and taking out the paper which she had hidden there, brought it to him. It was a moment before she could find the item again, then she pointed it out. They read it together, as she and Santry had done the first time she had seen it. The item was an announcement from the Rexhills of the engagement of their daughter Helen to Mr. Maxwell Frayne.