“Col.  Blank had just invested all his property, except the estate in Cincinnati, in the purchase of this tract, and was about to remove thither, when Mrs. Blank died; and, as I said, he never seemed quite himself after that event, and took no further steps toward emigration.  The house in Cincinnati might sell, Mr. Ferrars thought, for three or four thousand dollars; enough, you see, to make a beginning at ‘Outpost,’ as the colonel called it.”

“Did he name the Iowa farm Outpost?” asked Dora rather eagerly.

“Yes:  you see the name is written on this map of the estate.”

“Then we will call it so; won’t we, Karl?”

“But you don’t advise my cousin to emigrate to the backwoods, do you, Mr. Burroughs?” asked Karl disapprovingly.

“It is the only method of reaping any immediate benefit from her inheritance,” said the lawyer.  “The territory is valuable, very; but would not sell to-day for anything like the price paid by Col.  Blank, who fancied its situation, and intended to live there.  The only way to get back the money is to hold the land until better times, or until emigration reaches the Des Moines more freely than it has yet done.”

“I shall certainly go there and live,” said Dora with quiet positiveness.

“You have decided?” asked Mr. Burroughs, looking into her face, and smiling.

“Quite,” said Dora.

Karl looked too, saw the firm line of the young girl’s rosy lips, and slightly raised his eyebrows.

“It is settled,” said he with comic resignation.

Dora returned his gaze wistfully.  She could not, in presence of a stranger, say what was in her heart:  but she longed to let him know that this prospect of independence, of making a home of her own, of assuming duties and pursuits of her own, was such a prospect as no friend could wish her to forego; was the full and only cure for the bitterness of heart she had been unable to conceal from him upon the previous evening,—­a bitterness so foreign to the sweet and noble nature of the young girl, that it had affected her cousin’s mind with a sort of terror.

Something of all she meant must have stood visibly in the clear eyes Dora now fixed upon Karl; for, in meeting that gaze, the young man changed color, and said hastily,—­

“But if you will be happier, Dora; if you are not contented here-It is a humdrum sort of life, I know.”

“Oh, no! not that; but I want to be doing something.  I mean something almost more than I can do, not ever so much less.  I like to feel as if I must use every bit of strength and courage I have, and then I always find more than I thought I had.”

Mr. Burroughs looked sharply at the young girl who made this ungirlish avowal.  Was this utter simplicity? or was it an ingenious affectation?  Was Dora Darling one of the noblest, or one of the most crafty, of womankind?

Tom Burroughs was a man of the world and of society, and flattered himself that neither man nor woman had art deeper than his penetration; but as he rapidly scanned the broad brow, clear, level-glancing eyes, firm, sweet mouth, queenly head, and mien of innocent self-confidence, he asked himself again,—­