"What?" gasped Barton.

"Peat-bog fossils," repeated the mild little voice. "Are you
interested in peat-bog fossils? Or would you rather talk about the
Mississippi River pearl fisheries? Or do you care more perhaps for
politics? Would you like to discuss the relative financial conditions
of the South American republics?"

Before the expression of blank despair in Barton's face, her own face
fell a trifle. "No?" she ventured worriedly. "No? Oh, I'm sorry, Mr.
Barton, but you see--you see--I've never been out before with
anybody--my own age. So I don't know at all what you would be
interested in!"

"Never been out before with any one her own age?" gasped Barton to
himself. Merciful Heavens! what was her "own age"? There in her little
khaki Norfolk and old slouch hat she looked about fifteen years
old--and a boy, at that. Altogether wretchedly he turned and grinned
at her.

"Miss Edgarton," he said, "believe me, there's not one thing to-day
under God's heaven that does interest me--except the weather!"

"The weather?" mused little Eve Edgarton thoughtfully. Casually, as
she spoke, she glanced down across the horses' lathered sides and up
into Barton's crimson face. "The weather? Oh!" she hastened anxiously
to affirm. "Oh, yes! The meteorological conditions certainly are
interesting this summer. Do you yourself think that it's a shifting of
the Gulf Stream? Or just a--just a change in the paths of the cyclonic