“Jake, I’d rather have lived back in the early days,” mused Lenore.

“Me too, though I ain’t no youngster,” he replied.  “Reckon you’d better go in now, Miss Lenore....  Don’t you worry none or lose any sleep.”

Lenore bade the cowboy good-night and went to the sitting-room.  Her mother sat preoccupied, with sad and thoughtful face.  Rose was writing many pages to Jim.  Kathleen sat at the table, surreptitiously eating while she was pretending to read.

“My, but you look funny, Lenorry!” she cried.

“Why don’t you laugh, then?” retorted Lenore.

“You’re white.  Your eyes are big and purple.  You look like a starved cannibal....  If that’s what it’s like to be in love—­excuse me—­I’ll never fall for any man!”

“You ought to be in bed.  Mother I recommend the baby of the family be sent up-stairs.”

“Yes, child, it’s long past your bedtime,” said Mrs. Anderson.

“Aw, no!” wailed Kathleen.

“Yes,” ordered her mother.

“But you’d never thought of it—­if Lenorry hadn’t said so,” replied Kathleen.

“You should obey Lenore,” reprovingly said Mrs. Anderson.

“What?  Me!  Mind her!” burst out Kathleen, hotly, as she got up to go.  “Well, I guess not!” Kathleen backed to the door and opened it.  Then making a frightful face at Lenore, most expressive of ridicule and revenge, she darted up-stairs.

“My dear, will you write to your brother?” inquired Mrs. Anderson.

“Yes,” replied Lenore.  “I’ll send mine with Rose’s.”

Mrs. Anderson bade the girls good-night and left the room.  After that nothing was heard for a while except the scratching of pens.

It was late when Lenore retired, yet she found sleep elusive.  The evening had made subtle, indefinable changes in her.  She went over in mind all that had been said to her and which she felt, with the result that one thing remained to torment and perplex and thrill her—­to keep Kurt Dorn from going to war.

* * * * *

Next day Lenore did not go out to the harvest fields.  She expected Dorn might arrive at any time, and she wanted to be there when he came.  Yet she dreaded the meeting.  She had to keep her hands active that day, so in some measure to control her mind.  A thousand times she felt herself on the verge of thrilling and flushing.  Her fancy and imagination seemed wonderfully active.  The day was more than usually golden, crowned with an azure blue, like the blue of the Pacific.  She worked in her room, helped her mother, took up her knitting, and sewed upon a dress, and even lent a hand in the kitchen.  But action could not wholly dull the song in her heart.  She felt unutterably young, as if life had just opened, with haunting, limitless, beautiful possibilities.  Never had the harvest-time been so sweet.

Anderson came in early from the fields that day.  He looked like a farm-hand, with his sweaty shirt, his dusty coat, his begrimed face.  And when he kissed Lenore he left a great smear on her cheek.