ed him
discomfort, bothered him at night, now. He said nothing about it.

That summer Doris had taken a course in stenography and typewriting,
going every day to Brooklyn by train and returning before sunset.

When school began she asked to be allowed to continue. Catharine, too,
desired to learn. And if their father understood very clearly what
they wanted, it is uncertain. Anyway he offered no objections.

That winter he saw his son very seldom. Perhaps the boy was busy. Once
or twice he came to ask his father for money, but there was none to
give him,--very little for anybody--and Doris and Catharine required
that.

Some little money was taken in at the Hotel Greensleeve; commercial
men were rather numerous that winter: so were duck-hunters. Athalie
often saw them stamping around in the bar, the lamplight glistening on
their oil-skins and gun-barrels, and touching the silken plumage of
dead ducks--great strings of them lying on the bar or on the floor.

Once when she came home from school earlier than usual, she went into
the kitchen and found a hot peach turnover awaiting her, constructed
for her by the slovenly cook, and kept hot by the still more slovenly
maid-of-all-work--the only servants at the Hotel Greensleeve.

Sauntering back through the house, eating her turnover, she noticed
Mr. Ledlie reading his newspaper in the office and her father
apparently asleep on a chair before the stove.

There were half a dozen guests at the inn, duck-hunters from New York,
but they were evidently still out with their bay-men.

Nibbling her pastry Athalie loitered along the hall and deposited her
strapped books on a chair under the noisy wall-clock. Then, at hazard,
she wandered into the bar. It was growing dusky; nobody had lighted
the ceiling lamp.

At first she thought the room was empty, and had strolled over toward
the stove to warm her snow-wet shoes, when all at once she became
aware of a boy.

The boy was lying back on a leather chair, stockinged feet crossed,
hands in his pocket, looking at her. He wore the leather shooting
clothes of a duck-hunter; on the floor beside him lay his cap,
oil-skins, hip-boots, and his gun. A red light from the stove fell
across his dark, curly hair and painted one side of his face crimson.

Athalie, surprised, was not, however, in the least disturbed or
embarrassed. She looked calmly at the boy, at the woollen stockings on
his feet.

"Did you manage to get dry?" she asked