"Well, Major," she smiled slowly at last, "you seem to have a way of ordering things! Tell me about yourself. I mean about you, yourself, personally. I've no way of getting the commonest notion of people any more. It's very, very hard." He went on quickly, warned by the quiver of her lips. "All right," said he. "I'll fill out my questionnaire. This registrant is Barnes, Major Allen, age thirty-one, Medical Corps, assigned to special service Engineers' detail, power dam of the Transcontinental Light and Power Company; graduate of Johns Hopkins; height eleven feet five inches--you see, I've felt all of that tall ever since I got to be a Major. Eyes, gray; hair, sandy. Mobility of chest, four and a half inches. Features, clean-cut and classical. Good muscular development. Stature, erect and robust. Blood pressure, 128. Pulse, full and regular. Habits, very bad. Three freckles on left hand." "Dear me!" she said, smiling in spite of all, and thus evincing definitely a certain dimple in her left cheek which now he noticed in confirmation of his earlier suspicion. "Bad habits?" "Well, I smoke, and everything, you know. Majors have to be regular fellows." "You're rather pleasant to talk to!" "Very!" "You know, you seem rather a manny sort of man to me--do you know what I mean?" "I'm glad you think so." "And I owe you a great deal, Major--or--Doctor." "Please don't make yourself a continuous trial balance all the time. Don't be thinking of sacrifices and duties--isn't there some way we can plan just to get some plain joy out of life as we go along? I believe that's my religion, if I've got any." "I often wish I could see the mountains," said she, vaguely. He rose suddenly. "Come with me, then! I'll take you out into the sunlight. I'll tell you all about the mountains. I'll show you something of the world. I couldn't live out here if it wasn't for the sheer beauty of this country. It's wonderful--it's so beautiful." "What was it you put down by the door as you came in?" she asked of him curiously. He turned to her with like curiosity. "How do you know?" said he. "Are you shamming? That was my fishing rod and my fish basket I put down there; but I didn't think you'd know anything about it." "I'm beginning to have abnormally acute senses, I suppose. That's necessity." "Nature is a very wonderful old girl," said Doctor Barnes. "But come now, I'm going to ask you to go down to the stream with me and have a try about those grayling. I told Sim Gage I was going to some time, and this will be about my last chance. If we have any luck I'll show you there's something in this country beside bacon and beans." "I'd love to," said Mary, eagerly. "Why, that'll be fine!" She rose and went directly to her sunbonnet, which hung upon a nail in the wall--the sunbonnet which Mrs. Jensen had fashioned for her and promised her to be of much utility. But she stumbled as she turned.