m come, you would not remain a month at
New Canaan," was her answer.

"But it isn't a matter of life and death to me to stay at New Canaan! I
need not starve if I lose my position here. There are better places."

Tillie gazed down upon the chenille table-cover, and did not speak. She
could not tell him that it did seem to HER a matter of life and death
to have him stay.

"It seems to me, Tillie, you could shake off Absalom through your
father's objections to his attentions. The fellow could not blame you
for that."

"But don't you see I must keep him by me, in order to protect you."

"My dear little girl, that's rough on Absalom; and I'm not sure it's
worthy of you."

"But you don't understand. You think Absalom will be hurt in his
feelings if I refuse to marry him. But I've told him all along I won't
marry him. And it isn't his feelings that are concerned. He only wants
a good housekeeper."

Fairchilds's eyes rested on the girl as she sat before him in the fresh
bloom of her maidenhood, and he realized what he knew she did not--that
unsentimental, hard-headed, and practical as Absalom might be, if she
allowed him the close intimacy of "setting-up" with her, the fellow
must suffer in the end in not winning her. But the teacher thought it
wise to make no further comment, as he saw, at any rate, that he could
not move her in her resolution to defend him.

And there was another thing that he saw. The extraneous differences
between himself and Tillie, and even the radical differences of
breeding and heredity which, he had assumed from the first, made any
least romance or sentiment on the part of either of them unthinkable,
however much they might enjoy a good comradeship,--all these
differences had strangely sunk out of sight as he had, from day to day,
grown in touch with the girl's real self, and he found himself unable
to think of her and himself except in that deeper sense in which her
soul met his. Any other consideration of their relation seemed almost
grotesque. This was his feeling--but his reason struggled with his
feeling and bade him beware. Suppose that she too should come to feel
that with the meeting of their spirits the difference in their
conditions melted away like ice in the sunshine. Would not the result
be fraught with tragedy for her? For himself, he was willing, for the
sake of his present pleasure, to risk a future wrestling with his
impracticable sentiments; but what must be the cost of suc