“Oh, Jim!” She glanced admiringly at the new brown suit, the rather startling tie, and the neat little posy in Jim's buttonhole. “The fellows said I'd have to slick up a bit if I was a-comin' to see you, so as not to make you ashamed of me. Do you like 'em?” he asked, looking down approvingly at his new brown clothes. “Very much.” For the first time Jim noticed the unfamiliar manner of her speech. He began to feel self-conscious. A year ago she would have said, “You bet!” He looked at her awkwardly. She hurried on: “Hasty told me you were showing in Wakefield. I knew you'd come to see me. How's Barker and all the boys?” She stopped with a catch in her throat, and added more slowly: “I suppose everything's different, now that Toby is gone.” “He'd a-liked to a-seen you afore he cashed in,” Jim answered; “but maybe it was just as well he didn't. You'd hardly a-knowed him toward the last, he got so thin an' peeked like. He wasn't the same after we lost you, nobody was, not even Bingo.” “Have you still got Bingo?” she asked, through her tears. “Yep, we got him,” drawled Jim, “but he ain't much good no more. None of the other riders can get used to his gait like you was. There ain't nobody with the show what can touch you ridin', there never will be. Say, mebbe you think Barker won't let out a yell when he sees yer comin' back.” Jim was jubilant now, and he let out a little yell of his own at the mere thought of her return. He was too excited to notice the look on Polly's face. “Toby had a notion before he died that you was never a-comin' back, but I told him I'd change all that once I seed yer, and when Barker sent me over here to-day to look arter the advertisin', he said he guessed you'd had all you wanted a' church folks. 'Jes' you bring her along to Wakefield,' he said, 'an' tell her that her place is waitin' for her,' and I will, too.” He turned upon Polly with sudden decision. “Why, I feel jes' like pickin' yer up in my arms and carryin' you right off now.” “Wait, Jim!” She put one tiny hand on his arm to restrain him. “I don't mean--not--to-day--mebbe”--he stammered, uncertainly, “but we'll be back here a-showin' next month.” “Don't look at me now,” Polly answered, as the dog-like eyes searched her face, “because I have to say something that is going to hurt you, Jim.” “You're comin', ain't yer, Poll?” The big face was wrinkled and care-worn with trouble. “No, Jim,” she replied in a tone so low that he could scarcely hear her. “You mean that you ain't NEVER comin' back?” He tried to realise what such a decision might mean to him. “No, Jim.” She answered tenderly, for she dreaded the pain that she must cause the great, good-hearted fellow. “You mustn't care like that,” she pleaded, seeing the blank desolation that had come into his face. “It isn't because I don't love you just the same, and it was good of Barker to keep my place for me, but I can't go back.”