with him. And though he sometimes joked with Miss Anne, who had
withdrawn now to the level plane of friendship with him, about the
transformation that was going on, he worried in a way that did neither
his heart nor his brain good. Still he fought both to little purpose
all that summer, and it was not till the time was nigh when June must
go away again, that he spoke both. For Hale's sister was going to marry,
and it was her advice that he should take June to New York if only for
the sake of her music and her voice. That very day June had for the
first time seen her cousin Dave. He was on horseback, he had been
drinking and he pulled in and, without an answer to her greeting, stared
her over from head to foot. Colouring angrily, she started on and then
he spoke thickly and with a sneer:

"'Bout fryin' size, now, ain't ye? I reckon maybe, if you keep on,
you'll be good enough fer him in a year or two more."

"I'm much obliged for those apples, Dave," said June quietly--and Dave
flushed a darker red and sat still, forgetting to renew the old threat
that was on his tongue.

But his taunt rankled in the girl--rankled more now than when Dave first
made it, for she better saw the truth of it and the hurt was the greater
to her unconquerable pride that kept her from betraying the hurt to Dave
long ago, and now, when he was making an old wound bleed afresh. But
the pain was with her at dinner that night and through the evening. She
avoided Hale's eyes though she knew that he was watching her all the
time, and her instinct told her that something was going to happen that
night and what that something was. Hale was the last to go and when he
called to her from the porch, she went out trembling and stood at the
head of the steps in the moonlight.

"I love you, little girl," he said simply, "and I want you to marry me
some day--will you, June?" She was unsurprised but she flushed under his
hungry eyes, and the little cross throbbed at her throat.

"SOME day-not NOW," she thought, and then with equal simplicity: "Yes,
Jack."

"And if you should love somebody else more, you'll tell me right
away--won't you, June?" She shrank a little and her eyes fell, but
straight-way she raised them steadily:

"Yes, Jack."

"Thank you, little girl--good-night."

"Good-night, Jack."

Hale saw the little shrinking movement she made, and, as he went down
the hill, he thought she seemed to be in a hurry to be alone, and that
she had caught