much in love with young Dalrymple.

"And I've the worst class of girls I ever had," went on Miss Hill.
"The one I had last year was a class of angels compared to what I have
now. I reproved one girl whose mother wrote me that as long as
Middleville had preachers like Doctor Wallace and teachers like myself
there wasn't much chance of a girl being good. So I'm going to give up
teaching."

The little schoolmistress straightened up in her chair and looked
severe. Colonel Pepper shifted uneasily, bent his glance for the
hundredth time on his shiny shoes and once more had recourse to his
huge handkerchief and heated brow.

"Well, Colonel, it seems good to see you once more," put in Lane.
"Tell me about yourself. How do you pass the time?"

"Same old story, Daren, same old way, a game of billiards now and
then, and a little game of cards. But I'm more lonely than I used to
be."

"Why, you never were lonely!" exclaimed Lane.

"Oh, yes indeed I was, always," protested the Colonel.

"A little game of cards," mused Lane. "How well I remember! You used
to have some pretty big games, too."

"Er--yes--you see--once in a while, very seldom, just for fun," he
replied.

"How about your old weakness? Hope you've conquered that," went on
Lane, mercilessly.

The Colonel was thrown into utter confusion. And when Miss Hill turned
terrible eyes upon him, poor Pepper looked as if he wanted to sink
through the porch.

Lane took pity on him and carried him off to the garden and the river
bank, where he became himself again.

They talked for a while, but neither mentioned the subject that had
once drawn them together. For both of them a different life had begun.

A little while afterward Mel and Lane watched the bright figure and
the slight dark one go up the hillside cityward.

"What do you know about that!" ejaculated Lane for the tenth time.

"Hush!" said Mel, and she touched his lips with a soft exquisite
gesture.

At three o'clock one June afternoon Mel and Daren were lounging on a
mossy bank that lined the shady side of a clear rapid-running brook. A
canoe was pulled up on the grass below them. With an expression of
utter content, Lane was leaning over the brook absorbed in the
contemplation of a piece of thread which was tied to a crooked stick
he held in his hand. He had gone back to his boyhood days. Just then
the greatest happiness on earth was the outwitting of bright-sided
minnows and golden flecked sunfish. Mel