_ There was a heavy frost last night. It makes me feel that summer is over. Dinky-Dunk asked me yesterday why I disliked Casa Grande and never ventured over into that neighborhood. I evaded any answer by announcing that there were very few things I liked nowadays....
Only once, lately, have we spoken of Lady Allie. It was Dinky-Dunk, in fact, who first brought up her name in speaking of the signing of the transfer-papers.
"Is it true," I found the courage to ask, "that you knew your cousin quite intimately as a girl?"
Dinky-Dunk laughed as he tamped down his pipe.
"Yes, it
must have been quite intimately," he acknowledged. "For when she was seven and I was nine we went all the way down Teignmouth Hill together in an empty apple-barrel--than which nothing that I know of could possibly be more intimate!"
I couldn't join him in his mirth over that incident, for I happened to remember the look on Lady Alicia's face when she once watched Dinky-Dunk mount his mustang and ride away. "Aren't men lawds of creation?" she had dreamily inquired. "Not after you've lived with them for a couple of years," I had been heartless enough to retort, just to let her know that I didn't happen to have a skin like a Douglas pine. _