ntil she was years more experienced did she study that
never-forgotten expression, study it as a whole--words, tone, look.
Then, and not until then, did she know that she had instinctively
shrunk because he had laid bare his base and all but loveless motive in
marrying her.

"And," he added, "I'll force father to give me a big interest in the
business very soon. Then--we'll announce it."

Announce IT? Announce WHAT? "Why, I'm a married woman," she thought,
and she stumbled and almost fell. The way danced before her eyes, all
spotted with black. She was just able to walk aboard the boat and drop
into a seat.

He sat beside her, took her hand and bent over it; as he kissed it a
tear fell on it. He looked at her and she saw that his eyes were
swimming. A sob surged into her throat, but she choked it back.
"Jack!" she murmured, and hid her face in her handkerchief.

When they looked each at the other both smiled--her foreboding had
retreated to the background. She began to turn the ring round and
round upon her finger.

"Mrs. John Dumont," she said. "Doesn't it sound queer?" And she gazed
dreamily away toward the ranges of hills between which the river danced
and sparkled as it journeyed westward. When she again became conscious
of her immediate surroundings--other than Dumont--she saw a deck-hand
looking at her with a friendly grin.

Instantly she covered the ring with her hand and handkerchief. "But I
mustn't wear it," she said to Dumont.

"No--not on your finger." He laughed and drew from his pocket a
slender gold chain. "But you might wear it on this, round your neck.
It'll help to remind you that you don't belong to yourself any more,
but to me."

She took the chain--she was coloring in a most becoming way--and hid it
and the ring in her bosom. Then she drew off a narrow hoop of gold
with a small setting and pushed it on his big little finger.

"And THAT, sir," she said, with a bewitching look, "may help you not to
forget that YOU belong to me."

She left the ferry in advance of him and faced Olivia just in time for
them to go down together to the half-past twelve o'clock dinner.

V.

FOUR FRIENDS.

As Mrs. Trent's was the best board in Battle Field there were more
applicants than she could make places for at her one table. In the
second week of the term she put a small table in the alcove of the
dining-room and gave it to her "star" boarders--Pierson, Olivia and
Pauline. They invit