A Daughter of the Land

"I was wondering about that," he replied.

"Yes, I got it just before I started," said Kate. "Are you

surprised to see me?"

"No," he answered. "After last year, we figured you might come

the last of this week or the first of next, so we got your room

ready Monday."

"Thank you," said Kate. "It's very clean and nice."

"I hope soon to be able to offer you such a room and home as you

should have," he said. "I haven't opened my office yet. It was

late and hot when I got home in June and Mother was fussing about

this winter -- that she had no garden and didn't do her share at

Aunt Ollie's, so I have farmed most of the summer, and lived on

hope; but I'll start in and make things fly this fall, and by

spring I'll be sailing around with a horse and carriage like the

best of them. You bet I am going to make things hum, so I can

offer you anything you want."

"You haven't opened an office yet?" she asked for the sake of

saying something, and because a practical thing would naturally

suggest itself to her.

"I haven't had a breath of time," he said in candid disclaimer.

"Why don't you ask me what's the matter?"

"Didn't figure that it was any of my business in the first place,"

he said, "and I have a pretty fair idea, in the second."

"But how could you have?" she asked in surprise.

"When your sister wouldn't give me your address, she hinted that

you had all the masculine attention you cared for; then Tilly

Nepple visited town again last week and she had been sick and

called Dr. Gray. She asked him about you, and he told what I fine

time you had at Chautauqua and Chicago, with the rich new friends

you'd made. I was watching for you about this time, and I just

happened to be at the station in Hartley last Saturday when you

got off the train with your fine gentleman, so I stayed over with

some friends of mine, and I saw you several times Sunday. I saw

that I'd practically no chance with you at all; but I made up my

mind I'd stick until I saw you marry him, so I wrote just as I

would if I hadn't known there was another man in existence."

"That was a very fine letter," said Kate.

"It is a very fine, deep, sincere love that I am offering you,"

said George Holt. "Of course I could see prosperity sticking out

all over that city chap, but it didn't bother me much, because I

knew that you, of all women, would judge a man on his worth. A

rising young professional man is not to be sneered at, at least

until he makes his start and proves what he can do. I couldn't

get an early start, because I've always had to work, just as

you've seen me last summer and this, so I couldn't educate myself

so fast, but I've gone as fast and far as I could."