er eyes.

The accident of the afternoon had cast a gloom over the merrymakings,
and, the picnic breaking up abruptly, sent the people scurrying home,
so that Miss Prime was at the house not far behind her charge.

"Freddie," she called to him as she entered the house, "Freddie, where
air you?" And then she found him. She led him out of the corner and
looked him over with a scrutinising eye. "Freddie Brent," she said
solemnly, "you 've jest ruined yore suit." He was glad. He wanted to be
scolded. "But," she went on, "I don't care ef you have." And here she
broke down. "You 're a-goin' to have another one, fur you 're a right
smart boy, that 's all I 've got to say." For a moment he wanted to lay
his head on her breast and give vent to the sob which was choking him.
But he had been taught neither tenderness nor confidence, so he choked
back the sob, though his throat felt dry and hot and strained. He stood
silent and embarrassed until Miss Prime recovered herself and continued:
"But la, child, you 'll take yore death o' cold. Git out o' them wet
things an' git into bed, while I make you some hot tea. Fur the life o'
me, I never did see sich carryin's-on."

The boy was not sorry to obey. He was glad to be alone. He drank the
warm tea and tried to go to sleep, but he could not. His mind was on
fire. His heart seemed as if it would burst from his bosom. Something
new had come to him. He began to understand, and blushed because he did
understand. It was less discovery than revelation. His forehead was hot.
His temples were throbbing. It was well that Miss Prime did not discover
it: she would have given him horehound to cure--thought!

From the moment that the boy held the form of the girl to his heart he
was changed, and she was changed to him. They could never be the same to
each other again. Manhood had come to him in a single instant, and he
saw in her womanhood. He began for the first time to really know
himself, and it frightened him and made him ashamed.

He drew the covers over his head and lay awake, startled, surprised at
what he knew himself and mankind to be.

To Fred Brent the awakening had come,--early, if we would be prudish;
not too early, if we would be truthful.

CHAPTER VIII

If Fred Brent had needed anything to increase his consciousness of the
new feeling that had come to him, he could not have done better to get
it than by going to see Eliphalet Hodges next day. His war of thought
had gon