“Why, yes,” Reginald replied, putting on the vest he had just taken off. “She nearly took my wits away. I never had many, you know, and I believe I was more stupid than usual to-night. Why, I didn’t know anything when Miss Burdick’s eyes were on me, and it was worse with the little one, Rena you call her. I caught her looking at me a great deal. Why did she, I wonder, do you know?” Tom laughed and said: “A cat may look at a king. Perhaps Rena admired you. Irene did, I am sure. I saw it in her eyes. They are very handsome.” “Yes,” Rex said, “very handsome and sharp to see through a fellow and I never felt so small in my life, or appeared so badly as to-night, sitting in that abominable chair in that hot room, and again under the pines on a damp board. I could not be myself. Did Rena notice it, or say anything about it?” “Upon my word he is getting a good deal rattled,” Tom thought, as Rex removed his vest a second time and began to put it on again wrong side out. “See here,” he said, “something has made bad work with what few brains you have. You’d better go to bed. No, Rena said nothing about you. Why should she? Good-night.” “Good-night,” Rex responded, then added hastily, “eh, Tom——” “Well, what is it? Hurry up. I’m half asleep,” Tom answered, with a feeling that Rex was about to speak of the will, in which case he felt that he should tell the truth at all hazards. Just for a minute it had crossed Rex’s mind to make Tom his confidant, and had he been encouraged he might have done so. But Tom’s answer was not inviting, and he replied: “Nothing—that is, nothing much; it will keep. Good-night again.” He closed the door upon Tom, and long after that young man was asleep and dreaming of Rena, he sat by his window, looking across the fields in the direction of Mrs. Parks’ house, just as Irene was looking across the fields toward the McPherson place. He had been anxious to see the girl selected for him by Sandy McPherson and had determined to like her, if possible. In fact he had a kind of morbid idea that it was his duty to like her, if she seemed to care for him. There had been no doubt in his mind as to which was the one. The will had said distinctly Irene Burdick, not Rena, and he had accepted Irene without questioning, or a thought that he was mistaken. Tom had prepared him somewhat for Irene’s beauty, but not altogether. He had seen a great many pretty girls north and south, but never one like her. She had thought him shy and indifferent, and he was all that, but nothing about her had escaped him, and her face and figure came up distinctly before him as he sat by his window, coatless and half undressed, but never thinking of the wind which was blowing up from the sea.