"He's makin' a railroad, ain't he?" Dale turned to Ann. "Do ye reckon he'll show me how?" "He'll turn it all over to you, no doubt!--he'll have to turn it over to someone if it gets built! It only shows, Daddy," she laughed across to the Colonel, "that one can't serve a corporation and a goddess both at the same time! Isn't that a natty little epigram?" "I don't follow the subject of your epigram," the Colonel smiled. "Why, Brent, and the goddess, and the railroad," she replied. "Goddess, my dear? What goddess?" She and Jane exchanged glances. "He's suspected of having a love somewhere; some mysterious love whom he meets in the moonlit forest of Arden--when it's moonlight; and, maybe, when it isn't." "What have you to support this?" the old gentleman frowned. He, too, had sometimes wondered what took Brent away so frequently of late. These were uncomfortable thoughts to the Colonel, who allowed suspicions no place in his estimate of people. "Oh, we just support it for the sake of gossip," she laughed. "Aunt Timmie dreamed it, I believe." "I thought you were serious," he smiled, yet showing his distaste for the subject, "nor will I permit any gossiping here!" "But, Heavens, Daddy--" "My dear," he interrupted her, "I trust you will never learn to gossip. It is purely a trade, carried on by a breed of fawning Judases--of self-satisfied butchers, to deal in the choicest cuts of their unsuspecting friends' characters. The shelter of my roof must also afford protection to the good name of my guest." "'Good name' in the present instance is hardly a calculable statement," she murmured, for Ann could be biting, as well as sweet, when her feelings were touched. "I quite agree with John," Miss Liz arose to the occasion. "It is strange," she added, turning the lorgnette this time carefully at Jane, "that he does not find a nice young girl to marry." "Such a cynosure of niceness, too," Ann added her little dig, and Jane suggested: "He might try advertising!" "What's advertising?" Dale asked. "Oh, Lord," the Colonel exploded into his napkin. When dinner was over, Jane crossed the porch unnoticed and walked out under the trees. The lorgnette which had said to her "it is strange he does not find some nice girl to marry," left a disquieting effect. Ann had only that day suggested the same idea, and Bob had laughed to her about it the previous evening. Even Aunt Timmie, the ebony font of wisdom, had but recently looked slyly at her, remarking: "'Foh long we's gwine to have a weddin' in a private cyar!" (Aunt Timmie had never seen a private car, but it typified her idea of grandeur). She now strolled on beneath the trees, beneath giant clinging wild grape and trumpet vines, to a circle of low spreading cedars, wherein lay a carpet of odorous tanbark. It was a favorite spot with her.