When I returned at evening, with the droning of the children's voices
echoing in my ears, it seemed to me that I had been gone an age. I came
again by the spring, but Guinea was not there, but I heard her singing
as I drew near to the house. She was in the passage, gleefully dancing,
with a broom for a partner. When she saw me she threw down the broom and
ran away, laughing; but she came back when she found that I had really
discovered her. "You must think that I am the silliest creature in the
world," she said, "and I don't know that I can dispute you. Millie
Lundsford has just gone home. She and I have been going through with our
old-time play, when, with window curtains wound about us to represent
long dresses, and with brooms to personate the brave knights who had
rescued us from the merciless Turks, we danced in the castle. And I was
just taking a turn with a duke when you came. What a knight you would
have been."

"And what an inspiration I should have had to drive me onward and to set
my soul aflame with ambition," I replied, looking into her eyes.

It must have been my look rather than my words that threw a change over
her; my manner must have told her that I was becoming too serious for
one who had known her so short a time, but be that as it may, a change
had come upon her. She was no longer a girl, gay and airy, with a
romping spirit, but a woman, dignified.

"Has your work been hard to-day?" she asked.

"It has been more or less stupid, as it always is," I answered, slowly
walking with her toward the dining-room.

When we had sat down to the table Alf came in with his new clothes on,
and whispering to me when his sister had turned to say something to her
mother, he said: "Got something to tell you when we go up stairs."

Mrs. Jucklin was afraid that I did not eat enough; she had heard that
brain workers required much food; her uncle, who had been a justice of
the peace, had told her that it made but small difference what he ate
while engaged in getting out saw logs, but that when he began to
meditate over a case in court he required the most stimulating
provender. "And now," she said, "if there's anything that I can fix for
you, do, please, let me know what it is. Now, Guinea, what are you
titterin' at? And that negro woman doesn't half do her work, either. I
declare to goodness I'd rather do everything on the place than to see
her foolin' round as if she's afraid to take hold of anything; and her
f