e
would write to Tillie, later, when he could. Meanwhile, God bless
her--and he was always her friend. That was all. He gave her no address
and did not speak of her writing to him.

Tillie walked home in a dream. All that evening, she was so "dopplig"
as finally to call forth a sharp rebuke from her father, to which she
paid not the slightest heed.

Would she ever see him again, her heart kept asking? Would he really
write to her again? Where was he at this moment, and what was he doing?
Did he send one thought to her, so far away, so desolate? Did he have
in any least degree the desire, the yearning, for her that she had for
him?

Tillie felt a pang of remorse for her disloyalty to Miss Margaret when
she realized that she had almost forgotten that always precious letter.
When, a little past midnight, she took it from her dress pocket she
noticed what had before escaped her--some erratic writing in lead on
the back of the envelop. It was in the doctor's strenuous hand.

"Willyam Pens as good as yoorn ive got them all promist but your pop to
wote for you at the bored meating saterdy its to be a surprize party
for your pop."

XXIV

THE REVOLT OF TILLIE

At half-past seven o'clock on Saturday evening, the School Board once
more convened in the hotel parlor, for the purpose of electing
Fairchilds's successor.

"Up till now," Mr. Getz had remarked at the supper-table, "I ain't been
tole of no candidate applyin' fur William Penn, and here to-night we
meet to elect him--or her if she's a female."

Tillie's heart had jumped to her throat as she heard him, wondering how
he would take it when they announced to him that the applicant was none
other than his own daughter--whether he would be angry at her long
deception, or gratified at the prospect of her earning so much
money--for, of course, it would never occur to him that she would dare
refuse to give him every cent she received.

There was unwonted animation in the usually stolid faces of the School
Board to-night; for the members were roused to a lively appreciation of
the situation as it related to Jake Getz. The doctor had taken each and
every one of them into his confidence, and had graphically related to
them the story of how Tillie had "come by" her certificate, and the
tale had elicited their partizanship for Tillie, as for the heroine of
a drama. Even Nathaniel Puntz was enjoying the fact that he was
to-night on the side of the majority. With Till