That night Girard came over, but with him was another visitor--William Snow. No sun could brown that baby-fair skin of William's, but he had an indefinably large and Western air; the very way in which he wore his clothes showed his independence. Dosia did not notice his swift, covert, shamefaced glance at her when she came into the room where he was talking to Lois--his avoidance of her the year before had dropped clear out of her mind; but his expression changed to one of complacent delight as she ran to him instantly and clasped his arm with both hands to cry, "Oh, Billy, Billy, I'm so glad to see you! I am so glad--I can't tell you how glad I am!" [Illustration: "STOOD THERE LEANING AGAINST 'DADDY'S' SIDE"] "All right, Sweetness, you're not going to lose me again," said William encouragingly. "My, but you do knock the spots out of those Western girls. Can't we go in the dining-room by ourselves? I want to ask you to marry me before we talk any more." "Yes, do," said Dosia, dimpling. It was sweet to be chaffed, to be heedlessly young once more, to take refuge from all disconcerting thoughts--from a new embarrassment--with Billy, in the corner of the other room, where she sat in a low chair, and he dragged up an ottoman close in front of her. Through the open window the scent of honeysuckle came in with the gloom. "Oh, but you've grown pretty!" he said, his hands clasped over his knees, gazing at her. "That's right, get pink--it makes you prettier. I like this slimpsy sort of dress you've got on; I like that black velvet around your throat; I--have you missed me much?" "No," said Dosia, with the old-time sparkle. "I've hardly thought of you at all. But I feel now as if I had." Billy nodded. "All right, I'll pay you up for that some day. Oh, Dosia, you may think I'm joking, but I'm not! There have been days and nights when I've done nothing but plan the things I was going to do and say to make you care for me--but they're all gone the moment I lay eyes on you. I'll talk of whatever you like afterward, but I've got to say first"--Billy's voice, deep and manly and confident, had yet a little shake in it--"that nobody is going to marry you but me, and don't you forget it. I'm no kid any more." Something in his tone gave his words emphasis. "I know how to look out for you better than any one else does." "Dear Billy," said Dosia, touched, and resting her cheek momentarily against the rough sleeve of his coat, "it's so good to have you back again." Lois, who had been longing intolerably all day for evening to come, so that she could be alone with her husband, sat in the drawing-room, trying to sew with nervous, trembling fingers, while her husband, looking frightfully tired, and Bailey Girard smoked and talked--of all things in the world!--of the relative merits of live or "spoon" bait in trolling, and afterward went minutely into details of the manufacture of artificial lures for catching trout.