She saw little of him during
the day. At noon, Dixon told her that he had made up his mind not to
accompany Thoreau on the trip south.
The following morning, before she was up, Jan had gone. She was deeply
hurt. Never before had he left on one of his long trips without
spending his last moments with her. She had purposely told her father
to entertain the agent and his son at the store that evening, so that
Jan might have an opportunity of bidding her good-by alone.
Outside of her thoughts of Jan, the days and evenings that followed
were pleasant ones for her. The new agent was as jolly as he was fat,
and took an immense liking to Melisse. Young Dixon was good-looking
and brimming with life, and spent a great deal of his time in her
company. For hours at a time she listened to his stories of the
wonderful world across the sea. As MacDonald had described that life
to Jan at Fort Churchill, so he told of it to Melisse, filling her
with visions of great cities, painting picture after picture, until
her imagination was riot with the beauty and the marvel of it all, and
she listened, with flaming cheeks and glowing eyes.
One day, a week after Jan had gone, he told her about the women in the
world which had come to be a fairy-land to Melisse.
"They are all beautiful over there?" she asked wonderingly, when he
had finished.
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