“It’s some mean dog-in-the-manger, who is watching you in secret, and——” He stopped short. “The boy is coming,” he said, and got to his feet. “You’ll stay to dinner?” she begged him timidly. “I made cherry pies this morning. I think”—humbly—“that they’re that they’re very good.” David put his arm around her, with a sudden untraced impulse of tenderness. “Don’t worry about the letter,” he said magnificently. “I’ll—think it over.” It was a very happy meal they ate together, in spite of the prying presence of Miss Cottle, who had assumed control of the teapot. There was stewed chicken, an abundance of fresh vegetables, strawberries and yellow cream, and, to top off with, the cherry pie of such unexampled excellence that David forgot the unpleasant doubts which had assailed him in the morning. As he sat, smoking a cigarette, on the shaded porch at the conclusion of the meal, it occurred to him that the farm was not, after all, so bad a place to live. His eyes wandered dreamily across the broad fields to the blue distance, and lingered there unseeingly. Barbara came out presently and sat down at his side. “I should be so happy,” she sighed, “if——” “Eh—what?” he roused himself to say. He reached out and patted her hand. “Why be unhappy about anything—just now?” he murmured. He smiled dreamily into her eyes. “The dinner was perfect, sweetheart; as for the reminder from your unknown, why not be thankful that ’it’ contents itself with correspondence?” Barbara turned her eyes away. An aching lump arose in her throat as if to choke her. When she finally answered him it was in a low, controlled voice. “There will be other letters—other reminders; you saw that.” David was at the moment languidly optimistic. It occurred to him to silence her grieving lips with a kiss; but he was too drowsily comfortable to move. He contented himself by again caressing her fingertips. “Don’t poison our happiness by perpetual references to something neither of us can possibly help,” he murmured. XVI