d its work on the boy he loved--and no one
had told him.

The summer was drawing to an end. During the last days of it Kate
wrote to Isabel:

"I could not have believed, dearest friend, that so long a time
would pass without my writing. Since you went away it has been
eternity. And many things have occurred which no one foresaw or
imagined. I cannot tell you how often I have resisted the impulse
to write. Perhaps I should resist now; but there are some matters
which you ought to understand; and I do not believe that any one
else has told you or will tell you. If I, your closest friend,
have shrunk, how could any one else be expected to perform the duty?

"A week or two after you left I understood why you went away
mysteriously, and why during that last visit to me you were unlike
yourself. I did not know then that your gayety was assumed, and
that you were broken-hearted beneath your brave disguises. But I
remember your saying that some day I should know. The whole truth
has come out as to why you broke your engagement with Rowan, and
why you left home. You can form no idea what a sensation the news
produced. For a while nothing else was talked of, and I am glad
for your sake that you were not here.

"I say the truth came out; but even now the town is full of
different stories, and different people believe different things.
But every friend of yours feels perfectly sure that Rowan was
unworthy of you, and that you did right in discarding him. It is
safe to say that he has few friends left among yours. He seldom
comes to town, and I hear that he works on the farm like a common
hand as he should. One day not long after you left I met him on
the street. He was coming straight up to speak to me as usual.
But I had the pleasure of staring him in the eyes and of walking
deliberately past him as though he were a stranger--except that I
gave him one explaining look. I shall never speak to him.

"His mother has the greatest sympathy of every one. They say that
no one has told her the truth: how could any one tell her such
things about her own son? Of course she must know that you dropped
him and that we have all dropped him. They say that she is greatly
saddened and that her health seems to be giving way.

"I do not know whether you have heard the other sensation regarding
the Meredith family. You refused Rowan; and now Dent is going to
marry a common girl in the neighborhood. Of course Dent Meredith