The Lighted Match

the same basin at the same time, it's a tol'a

d on the top step of his cabin porch. The while he construed

t her elbow poured water slowly from a gourd-dipper. Heaped, in disorder agai

ect in his pale eyes he pursued his reflections. "Now there was Sissy Belmire an' Bud Thomas, been keeping company for two

ddied digits over the water,

went down into the

ber," he enlightened; "nex

purpled and gold-rimmed. Shortly it would drop

hook her head. "'Twill never, never do to go back like this," she sighed. "They'll know I've

lying a brush on the damaged skirt. The farmer took his eyes

it looked to me like he was trying to jam

new the run better than the whips, and we chose the short cut across your meadow. My horse took off too wide at that

. The young man dropped back a few paces to satisfy himself that she was not concealing s

unconscious grace that belonged to her pliant litheness

n silence he conned the inventory. Slim uprightness like the strength of a young poplar; eyes that played the whole color-gamut between violet and slate-gray, as does the Mediterranean under sun and cloud-bank; lips

h individuality, with possibilities of purpose, with glints of merry humor and unspoken sa

ht-furrow was delicately accentuated. She drew a long, deep breath and, lettin

hild, "and it all spells Freedom. I should like to be the freest thin

ay they had until they seemed to be searching far out in the fields of untal

w vanished and the eyes suddenly went dancing. "That is what I should l

ooked up to encounter a steady

d her voice became responsively vibrant as she l

e questioned. "Y

d to be marching with lances and ragged pennants, against the o

cause you are the sum of two girls, and I know only one of them. I am jealous of the other girl at home in Europe. I am jealous that

t her face was averted. In her hidden eyes at that moment, there

t! After all, perhaps it's only that in another incarnation I

e have not just been idly rich together. Why, Cara, do you remember the day we lost our way in the far woods, and I foraged corn, and you scr

I approve of my sh

ed on his face and somethi

too decent brute, Pagratide. I don't like double

she laughed. "He pretends to h

play a while with her American cousins, Europe might stay on its own side of the pond. This Pagrati

c?" she echo

he amended. "I mean me and

the road sounded a temper

mmoned him out of sp

ved." He gathered in his reins with an almost vicious jerk w

de with military uprightness, softened by the informal ease of the polo-player. Even at the distance, which his horse was lessening

ted, with a pleasantly foreign accent, which was rather a nicet

he girl's gauntleted hand, kissed her fingers in a manner that added to something of ceremonious flouri

ated. "I thought you w

ening line of the whitest teeth und

-and so-" He shrugged his shoulders. Then, noting Benton's half-amused, half-annoyed smile, he bow

Are you still foreign?" he inquired. "I thought perh

girl with something of entreaty.

and tall chimneys of "Idle Times." B

s. "When a woman is asked to extend a welcome, she must be given time to prepar

er of gravel under their twelve hoofs, the horses burst forward in a sudden nec