He baffled me, and he baffled Jessamine. Indeed, his eagerness with her parcels, his assistance in checking her trunk, his cheerful examination of check and ticket to be sure they read over the same route, plainly failed to gratify her. Her firmness about going was sincere, but she had looked for more dissuasion; and this sprightly abettal of her departure seemed to leave something vacant in the ceremonies She fell singularly taciturn during supper at the Hotel Brunswick, and presently observed, “I hope I shall see Mr. Donohoe.” “Texas?” said Lin. “I expect they'll have tucked him in bed by now up at the ranch. The little fellow is growing yet.” “He can walk round a freight-car all night,” said Miss Buckner, stoutly. “I've always wanted to thank him for looking after me.” Mr. McLean smiled elaborately at his plate “Well, if he's not actually thinking he'll tease me!” cried out Jessamine “Though he claims not to be foolish like Mr. Donohoe. Why, Mr. McLean, you surely must have been young once! See if you can't remember!” “Shucks!” began Lin. But her laughter routed him. “Maybe you didn't notice you were young,” she said. “But don't you reckon perhaps the men around did? Why, maybe even the girls kind o' did!” “She's hard to beat, ain't she?” inquired Lin, admiringly, of me. In my opinion she was. She had her wish, too about Texas; for we found him waiting on the railroad platform, dressed in his best, to say good-bye. The friendly things she told him left him shuffling and repeating that it was a mistake to go, a big mistake; but when she said the butter was not good enough, his laugh cracked joyously up into the treble. The train's arrival brought quick sadness to her face, but she made herself bright again with a special farewell for each acquaintance. “Don't you ride any more cow-catchers,” she warned Billy Lusk, “or I'll have to come back and look after you.” “You said you and me were going for a ride, and we ain't,” shouted the long-memoried nine-year-old. “You will,” murmured Mr. McLean, oracularly. As the train's pace quickened he did not step off, and Miss Buckner cried “Jump!” “Too late,” said he, placidly. Then he called to me, “I'm hard to beat, too!” So the train took them both away, as I might have guessed was his intention all along. “Is that marriage again?” said Billy, anxiously. “He wouldn't tell me nothing.” “He's just seeing Miss Buckner as far as Edgeford,” said the agent. “Be back to-morrow.” “Then I don't see why he wouldn't take me along,” Billy complained. And Separ laughed.