"Oh, Burt, suppose I had not released you, but played Shylock, what would you have done?" and her laugh rang out again in intense merriment. "I had no fears of that," he replied, ruefully. "You are the last one to practice Mrs. MacStinger's tactics. My fear was that you and Miss Hargrove both would send me West as a precious good riddance." "Well, it was square of you, as Alf says, to come to me first, and I appreciate it, but I should not have resented the omission. Will you forgive my curiosity if I ask what is the next move in the campaign? I've been reading about the war, you know, and I am quite military in my ideas." "I have Miss Hargrove's permission to call to-night. It wasn't given very cordially, and she asked me to bring you." "No, I thank yon." "Oh, I told her she would have to forgive me if I came alone. I meant to have it out to-day, if old Chaos came again." When Amy's renewed laughter so subsided that he could speak, he resumed: "I'm going over there after supper, to ask her father for permission to pay my addresses, and if he won't give it, I shall tell him I will pay them all the same--that I shall use every effort in my power to win his daughter. I don't want a dollar of his money, but I'm bound to have the girl if she'll ever listen to me after knowing all you know." Amy's laugh ceased, and she again clasped her hands on his arm. "Dear Burt," she said, "your course now seems to me manly and straightforward. I saw the strait you were in, but did not think you felt it so keenly. In going West I feared you were about to run away from it. However Gertrude may treat you, you have won my respect by your downright truth. She may do as she pleases, but she can't despise you now. There goes your horse to the stable. He has learned this afternoon that you are in no state of mind to take care of him." CHAPTER LV BURT TELLS HIS LOVE AGAIN Webb appeared at the supper-table the personification of quiet geniality, but Amy thought she had never seen him look so hollow-eyed. The long strain was beginning to tell on him, decidedly, and to-night he felt as if he had received a mortal blow. But with indomitable courage he hid his wound, and seemed absorbed in a conversation with Leonard and his father about the different varieties of apples, and their relative value. Amy saw that his mother was looking at him anxiously, and she did not wonder. He was growing thin even to gauntness. Burt also was an arrant dissembler, and on rising from the table remarked casually that he was going over to bid Miss Hargrove good-by, as she would return to town on the morrow. "She'll surely come and see us before she goes," Mrs. Clifford remarked. "It seems to me she hasn't been very sociable of late."