"But I don't prefer it," he declared, hotly. "A week of New York is worth a year of the whole wide West put together. And I've done with all that now. I've come back here for good now--" "Have you really?" she responded, as he hesitated, having so much to say that he did not know where to begin. "I got back this morning," he explained, "and I was coming to see you this afternoon. I've--I've so many things to tell you." She looked at him for a second, and then she glanced away, as she said: "You will have to talk very fast, then, if you have so many things to tell me. We are going to sail on Tuesday morning, and this afternoon we are off to Tuxedo for over Sunday." "You sail on Tuesday?" he cried, despairingly. "Just when I have come back on purpose to see you again!" "You didn't telegraph grandma that you were coming, or she might have made other arrangements," the young woman retorted, with a little laugh. [Illustration: "'WINIFRED!' HE CRIED"] "And if you are going to Tuxedo to-night," he continued, paying no heed to this ironic suggestion, "then you won't be at home this afternoon?" "No," she answered; "we shall be back just in time to dress and get away to the train. Grandma has two or three errands to do first--she's inside there arranging about some silver things she wants to take over with us." "But I must see you to-day," he pleaded. "Aren't you seeing me now?" she returned, as the blush rose again and fell. "But I've got something I want to say to you!" he urged. "Won't it keep till Monday afternoon?" she asked, with another light laugh; but beneath the levity there was more than a hint of feeling. "No," he declared; "it won't keep an hour longer, for it's been kept too many years already. I've come here on purpose to tell you something--and I must do it to-day!" "If it's something you want to tell grand-ma--" she began, as if to gain time. "But it isn't," he returned, leaning his head almost inside the open window of the carriage. "It's you I want to talk to--not to your grandmother." "Then," said she, with a subtle change of manner, "if it is something you don't want grandma to hear, don't try to say it now, for here she comes." Harry Grant gave a hasty glance behind him, and he recognized the stately figure of Mrs. Winston-Smith in conversation with one of the salesmen just inside the door of the great store. "Winifred," he said, pleadingly, taking her hand again, "where can I see you again, if only for a minute--only a minute? That's enough for what I want!" Winifred looked at him and then down at her fingers. She hesitated, and finally she answered: "I think I heard grandma say she was going to the florist's before she went home--that florist in Broadway near Daly's, you know. She has a lot of things to order there, and I shall sit in the carriage." "I'll take the cable-car and be there waiting for you," he responded. "Don't let grandma see you," she cried; "that is--well--"