woman.

He mentioned it to Ma.

"Time she did," said the mother quietly. "She'll be seventeen in March."

The girl herself was aware of strange happenings within her. More, she
knew that the tall young man was responsible for them.

A great new life, full of shadows and delicious dangers, was surging up
in her heart, sweeping across the sands of her childhood, obliterating
tide-marks, swinging her off her feet, and carrying her forward under
bare stars toward the Unknown.

She fought against the invasion of this Sea, struggling to find footing
on the familiar bottom.

That Sea and Mr. Silver were intimately connected. Sometimes, indeed,
the girl could not distinguish one from the other. Was it the Sea which
bore Mr. Silver in upon her resisting mind?--or was it Mr. Silver who
trailed the Sea after him like a cloud?

Her helplessness angered and humiliated her. She fought fiercely and in
vain. That strong will of hers, which had never yet met its match, was
impotent now. This Thing, this Sea, this Man, crept in upon her like a
mist, invading her very sanctuaries.

She might close the doors and lock them--to no purpose.

She was angry, excited, not entirely displeased.

The change wrought in her swiftly. At least she had the sense that she
was embarking on a great adventure; and her romantic spirit answered to
the appeal.

She became quieter and passed much time in her room alone.

Mr. Silver kept knocking at the door in the loft which he had never
entered; but she refused to open to him.

To revenge herself she practised small brutalities upon him, which had
no effect. He just withdrew and came again next day with his big-dog
smile, quiet and persistent as a tide. Shy he was, and singularly
pertinacious.

Then his mother died.

That seemed to Boy unfair; but as she reasoned it out he could hardly be
held responsible.

They knew all about it at Putnam's, because there was a paragraph in the
paper about Brazil Silver's widow.

The young man buried his mother on Friday, and on Saturday came down to
Putnam's for his usual week-end.

Boy asked her mother if he had spoken to her about his trouble.

"No," said Mrs. Woodburn.

"Then he shall to me," said the girl, with determination.

He should not bottle up his grief. That would be bad for him. The
mother in the girl was emerging from the tom-boy very fast.

On Sunday evening she took him for a ride, and had her way, without a
struggle.

As they b