“No. He said he--hoped you wouldn’t!” They both laughed and Charlotte went on, with a saucy toss of her head: “Oh, he did, did he! He ought to be punished for that! Rhoda, I’m going to tell him he’s either got to keep his promises or vote for Buchanan! You know, I’m awfully fond of Horace”--her mouth drooped and her voice was plaintive--“but I’d be willing to give him up for the sake of a vote for Buck!” “Poor Horace! You ought to be ashamed to tease him so!” “Well, then, if you don’t want him teased, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” She stooped to pluck Bully Brooks, now verging fast upon the dignity of cathood, from the comfort of a nap upon a chair. “If you’ll persuade mother to let me go in to see Jeff Delavan whenever I want to I’ll let Horace off. But if you don’t he’ll have to either marry me or vote for my side. Won’t he, Bully Brooks?” The response of the kitten was of such emphatic sort that she boxed its ears and threw it to the floor. “The kitten’s getting too big to be teased,” Rhoda commented quietly. “Well, Horace isn’t!” she responded saucily and went whistling from the room. CHAPTER XI “No, mother, I don’t think I ought to do it.” “Why, Rhoda, what a curious idea! It seems to me to be plainly your duty. Jeff is so much quieter and more contented when you are in the room.” “But it doesn’t seem quite right to me to stay there so much when I’m not going to marry him. I know he--still loves me and if I spend so much time with him he’ll think I’m just leading him on to make him ask me again.” Mrs. Ware smiled at her daughter and fondly patted her arm. “My little Puritan girl! No, honey, Jeff is a gentleman and he won’t think anything of the sort. It’s very wrong of you to let such silly scruples hinder his recovery. Just think how fortunate it was that you were there when he came to himself yesterday! Why, Rhoda, I told your father it was just as if the sight of you fairly pulled him into his right senses. And now he’s nervous and fretful if you stay out of the room very long, as you did this afternoon. That’s bad for him, Rhoda, you know it is. He needs to be kept contented and happy.” Rhoda turned to the window and looked thoughtfully out. They were in her mother’s bedchamber, on the western side of the house. The sun was sinking into a royal couch of red and gray and gold, amber and pink and purple. Its level red rays fell upon the arbor and touched the withering leaves with delicate, evanescent tints. Her thoughts went back to that June night and she seemed to sense again the fragrance of the white petunias and to feel that prescience of fate awaiting her in its heavy shadows. And then with a rush that set her heart to beating faster came the thrilling memory of love words and the knowledge that had been born in her breast. Mrs. Ware noted the direction of her eyes and saw the quickening of the faint rose-bloom in her cheeks. She guessed what was in her daughter’s mind, smiled, and kept silent.