ed if she might not be safe now in dismissing him
emphatically and finally; but she decided there was still danger lest
Absalom might wreak his vengeance in some dreadful way upon the teacher.

Her heart was so full of happiness that she could tolerate even Absalom.

Only two short weeks of this brightness and glory, and then the blow
fell--the blow which blackened the sun in the heavens. The teacher
suddenly, and most mysteriously, resigned and went away.

No one knew why. Whether it was to take a better position, or for what
other possible reason, not a soul in the township could tell--not even
the Doc.

Strange to say, Fairchilds's going, instead of pleasing Mr. Getz, was
only an added offense to both him and Absalom. They had thirsted for
vengeance; they had longed to humiliate this "high-minded dude"; and
now not only was the opportunity lost to them, but the "job" they had
determined to wrest from him was indifferently hurled back in their
faces--he DIDN'T WANT IT! Absalom and Getz writhed in their helpless
spleen.

Tillie's undiscerning family did not for an instant attribute to its
true cause her sudden change from radiant happiness to the weakness and
lassitude that tell of mental anguish. They were not given to seeing
anything that was not entirely on the surface and perfectly obvious.

Three days had passed since Fairchilds's departure--three days of utter
blackness to Tillie; and on the third day she went to pay her weekly
visit to the tree-hollow in the woods where she was wont to place Miss
Margaret's letters.

On this day she found, to her amazement, two letters. Her knees shook
as she recognized the teacher's handwriting on one of them.

There was no stamp and no post-mark on the envelop. He had evidently
written the letter before leaving, and had left it with the doctor to
be delivered to her.

Tillie had always been obliged to maneuver skilfully in order to get
away from the house long enough to pay these weekly visits to the
tree-hollow; and she nearly always read her letter from Miss Margaret
at night by a candle, when the household was asleep.

But now, heedless of consequences, she sat down on a snow-covered log
and opened Fairchilds's letter, her teeth chattering with more than
cold.

It was only a note, written in great haste and evidently under some
excitement. It told her of his immediate departure for Cambridge to
accept a rather profitable private tutorship to a rich man's son. H