ng offensive."

"I do not know what you meant, and I do not care: go!"

He rose and stood before her, and with a flash of sincere anger he
spoke his honest mind: "It was you who put the notion in my head.
You encouraged me, encouraged me systematically; and now you are
pretending. You are a bad woman."

"I think I am a bad woman after what has happened to me this
morning," said Miss Anna, dazed and ready to break down.

He hesitated when he reached the door, smarting with his honest
hurt; and he paused there and made a request.

"At least I hope that you will never mention this; it might injure
me." He did not explain how, but he seemed to know.

"Do you suppose I'd tell my Maker if He did not already know it?"
She swept past him into the kitchen.

"As soon as you have done your work, go clean the parlor," she said
to the cook. "Give it a good airing. And throw that cream away,
throw the bottle away."

A few moments later she hurried with her bowl into the pantry;
there she left it unfinished and crept noiselessly up the
backstairs to her room.

That evening as Professor Hardage sat opposite to her, reading,
while she was doing some needlework, he laid his book down with the
idea of asking her some question. But he caught sight of her
expression and studied it a few moments. It was so ludicrous a
commingling of mortification and rage that he laughed outright.

"Why, Anna, what on earth is the matter?"

At the first sound of his voice she burst into hysterical sobs.

He came over and tried to draw her fingers away from her eyes.
"Tell me all about it."

She shook her head frantically.

"Yes, tell me," he urged. "Is there anything in all these years
that you have not told me?"

"I cannot," she sobbed excitedly. "I am disgraced."

He laughed. "What has disgraced you?"

"A man."

"Good heavens!" he cried, "has somebody been making love to you?"

"Yes."

His face flushed. "Come," he said seriously, "what is the meaning
of this, Anna?"

She told him.

"Why aren't you angry with him?" she complained, drying her eyes.
"You sit there and don't say a word!"

"Do you expect me to be angry with any soul for loving you and
wishing to be loved by you? He cast his mite into the treasury,
Anna."

"I didn't mind the mite," she replied. "But he said I encouraged
him, that I encouraged him _systematically_."

"Did you expect him to be a philosopher?"

"I did not expect him to be a--" She h