Thus a new phase of his trial presented itself to poor Burt. He must either face those two girls after their night's conclave, with all its possible revelations, or else awaken at once very embarrassing surmises. Why shouldn't he go for Amy? all would ask. "Well, why shouldn't I?" he thought. "I may as well face it out." And in a mood of mingled recklessness and fear he drove through the storm. When his name was announced the girls smiled significantly, but went down looking as unconscious as if they had not spoken of him in six months, and Burt could not have been more suave, non-committal, and impartially polite if these ladies had been as remote from his thoughts as one of Webb's theories. At the same time he intimated that he would be ready to return when Amy was. At parting the friends gave each other a little look of dismay, and he caught it from the same telltale mirror that persisted in taking a part in this drama. "Aha!" though the young fellow, "so they have been exchanging confidences, and my manner is disconcerting--not what was expected. If I have become a jest between them it shall be a short-lived one. Miss Hargrove, with all her city experience, shall find that I'm not so young and verdant but that I can take a hand in this game also. As for Amy, I now know she never cared for me, and I don't believe she ever would;" and so he went away with laughing repartee, and did not see the look of deep disappointment with which he was followed. Amy was perplexed and troubled. Her innocent schemes might not be so easily accomplished if Burt would be wrong-headed. She was aware of the dash of recklessness in his character, and feared that under the impulse of pride he might spoil everything, or, at least, cause much needless delay. With the fatality of blundering which usually attends upon such occasions, he did threaten to fulfil her fears, and so successfully that Amy was in anxiety, and Miss Hargrove grew as pale as she was resolute not to make the least advance, while poor Webb felt that his suspense never would end. Burt treated Amy in an easy, fraternal manner. He engaged actively in the task of gathering and preparing for market the large crop of apples, and he openly broached the subject of going into a business of some kind away from home, where, he declared, with a special meaning for Amy, he was not needed, adding: "It's time I was earning my salt and settling down to something for life. Webb and Len can take care of all the land, and I don't believe I was cut out for a farmer."