you call honest," William said, bitterly.
"You'd better run back, Rebecca. You don't want them to think you're
going with me, and they will. I'm disgraced, and so is Rose. You'd
better run back."

Rebecca stopped, and he did also. She looked up in his face; her
mouth was quivering with a kind of helpless shame, but her eyes were
full of womanly courage and steadfastness. "William," said she, "I
ran away in the face and eyes of them all to comfort you. They saw
me, and they can see me now, but I don't care. And I don't care if
you see me; I always have cared, but I don't now. I have always been
terribly afraid lest you should think I was running after you, but I
ain't afraid now. Don't you feel bad, William. That's all I care
about. Don't you feel bad; nobody is going to think any less of you.
I don't; I think more."

William looked down at her; there was a hesitating appeal in his
face, as in that of a hurt child. Suddenly Rebecca raised both her
arms and put them around his neck; he leaned his cheek down against
her soft hair. "Poor William," she whispered, as if he had been her
child instead of her lover.

A girl in the merry party speeding along at the foot of the hill
glanced around just then; she turned again, blushing hotly, and
touched a girl near her, who also glanced around. Then their two
blushing faces confronted each other with significant half-shamed
smiles of innocent young girlhood.

They locked arms, and whispered as they went on. "Did you see?"
"Yes." "His head?" "Yes." "Her arms?" "Yes." Neither had ever had a
lover.

But the two lovers at the top of the hill paid no heed. The party
were all out of sight when they went slowly down in the gathering
twilight. William left Rebecca when they came opposite her house.

Chapter VIII

When Rebecca entered the house, her mother was standing over the
stove, making milk-toast for supper. The boiling milk steamed up
fiercely in her face. "What makes you so long behind the others?" she
demanded, without turning, stirring the milk as she spoke.

"I guess I ain't much, am I?" Rebecca said, evasively. She tried to
make her voice sound as it usually did, but she could not. It broke
and took on faltering cadences, as if she were intoxicated with some
subtle wine of the spirit.

Her mother looked around at her. Rebecca's face was full of a strange
radiance which she could not subdue before her mother's hard,
inquiring gaze. Her cheeks burned with splen