e's head was bent over her sewing and she did not answer.

The doctor yawned, stretched himself, and guessed he would step into
the bar-room.

Tillie bent over her sewing for a long time after she was left alone.
The music of the young man's grave voice as he had spoken her name and
called her "Miss Matilda" sang in her brain. The fascination of his
smile as he had looked down into her eyes, and the charm of his
chivalrous courtesy, so novel to her experience, haunted and
intoxicated her. And tonight, Tillie felt her soul flooded with a life
and light so new and strange that she trembled as before a miracle.

Meanwhile, Walter Fairchilds, alone in his room, his mind too full of
the events and characters to which the past day had introduced him to
admit of sleep, was picturing, with mingled amusement and regret, the
genuine horror of his fastidious relatives could they know of his
present environment, among people for whom their vocabulary had but one
word--a word which would have consigned them all, even that
sweet-voiced, clear-eyed little Puritan, Matilda Maria, to outer
darkness; and that he, their adopted son and brother, should be
breaking bread and living on a footing of perfect equality with these
villagers he knew would have been, in their eyes, an offense only
second in heinousness to that of his apostasy.

XVI

THE WACKERNAGELS "CONWERSE"

The next day, being the Sabbath, brought to Tillie two of the keenest
temptations she had ever known. In the first place, she did not want to
obey her father and go home after dinner to take care of the children.
All in a day the hotel had become to her the one haven where she would
be, outside of which the sun did not shine.

True, by going home she might hope to escape the objectionable Sunday
evening sitting-up with Absalom; for in spite of the note she had sent
him, telling him of her father's wish that he must not come to see her
at the hotel, she was unhappily sure that he would appear as usual.
Indeed, with his characteristic dogged persistency, he was pretty
certain to follow her, whithersoever she went. And even if he did not,
it would be easier to endure the slow torture of his endless visit
under this roof, which sheltered also that other presence, than to lose
one hour away from its wonderful and mysterious charm.

"Now, look here, Tillie," said Aunty Em, at the breakfast-table, "you
worked hard this week, and this after you're restin'--leastways