ee the
girl's fair face looking out from a halo of tender little brown curls,
which, with a tortured conscience, and an apprehension of retribution
at the hands of the meeting, Tillie had brushed from under her cap and
arranged with artful care.

XIX

TILLIE TELLS A LIE

It was eleven o'clock on the following Saturday morning, a busy hour at
the hotel, and Mrs. Wackernagel and Tillie were both hard at work in
the kitchen, while Eebecca and Amanda were vigorously applying their
young strength to "the up-stairs work."

The teacher was lounging on the settee in the sitting-room, trying to
read his Boston Transcript and divert his mind from its irritation and
discontent under a condition of things which made it impossible for him
to command Tillie's time whenever he wanted a companion for a walk in
the woods, or for a talk in which he might unburden himself of his
pent-up thoughts and feelings. The only freedom she had was in the
evening; and even then she was not always at liberty. There was Amanda
always ready and at hand--it kept him busy dodging her. Why was Fate so
perverse in her dealings with him? Why couldn't it be Tillie instead of
Amanda? Fairchilds chafed under this untoward condition of things like
a fretful child--or, rather, just like a man who can't have what he
wants.

Both Tillie and her aunt went about their tasks this morning with a
nervousness of movement and an anxiety of countenance that told of
something unwonted in the air. Fairchilds was vaguely conscious of this
as he sat in the adjoining room, with the door ajar.

"Tillie!" said her aunt, with a sharpness unusual to her, as she closed
the oven door with a spasmodic bang, "you put on your shawl and bonnet
and go right up to Sister Jennie Hershey's for some bacon."

"Why, Aunty Em!" said Tillie, in surprise, looking up from the table
where she was rolling out paste; "I can't let these pies."

"I'll finish them pies. You just go now."

"But we've got plenty of bacon."

"If we've got bacon a-plenty, then get some ponhaus. Or some mush.
Hurry up and go, Tillie!"

She came to the girl's side and took the rolling-pin from her hands.
"And don't hurry back. Set awhile. Now get your things on quick."

"But, Aunty Em--"

"Are you mindin' me, Tillie, or ain't you?" her aunt sharply demanded.

"But in about ten minutes father will be stopping on his way from
Lancaster market," Tillie said, though obediently going toward the
corner wh