"Oh!" Mary said abruptly, struck by a sudden recollection. It was an hour later, and they sat together on the sofa. "I had a letter from Stella to-day." A faintly mischievous light sparkled in her eyes. "She sent her love--to you."
Buck flushed a little under his tan. "Some little kidder, isn't she, on short acquaintance?" he commented.
"Short!" Mary's eyes widened. "Why, she knew you before I did!"
Buck had rather dreaded the moment when he would have to tell her of that beastly, vanished year, but somehow he did not find it hard.
"As long as you don't ever let it happen again, I sha'n't mind," she smiled, when he had finished. "I simply couldn't bear it, though, if you should lose your memory--now."
"No danger," he assured her, with a look that deepened the color in her radiant face.
For a moment she did not speak. Then all at once her smile faded and she turned quickly to him.
"The--the ranch, dear," she said abruptly. "There's something, isn't there, I should do about--about turning it over--to you?"
He drew her head down against his shoulder. "No use bothering about that now," he shrugged. "We're going to be made one so soon that-- How about riding to Perilla to-morrow and--"
"Oh, Buck!" she protested. "I--I couldn't."
His arm tightened about her. "Well, say the day after," he suggested. "I'm afraid we'll have to spend our honeymoon right here getting things to rights, so you won't have to get a lot of new clothes and all that. There's nothing unlucky about Thursday, is there?"
She hid her face against his coat. "No-o; but I don't see how--I can--so soon. Well, maybe--perhaps--"
The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading. Why not then own the books of great novelists when the price is so small
Of all the amusements which can possibly be imagined for a hard-working man, after his daily toil, or, in its intervals, there is nothing like reading an entertaining book. It calls for no bodily exertion. It transports him into a livelier, and gayer, and more diversified and interesting scene, and while he enjoys himself there he may forget the evils of the present moment. Nay, it accompanies him to his next day's work, and gives him something to think of besides the mere mechanical drudgery of his every-day occupation--something he can enjoy while absent, and look forward with pleasure to return to.