?"

Her school-work, which began nest day, diverted her mind somewhat from
its deep yearning for him who had become to her the very breath of her
life.

It was on the Sunday night after her first week of teaching that she
told Absalom, with all the firmness she could command, that he must not
come to see her any more, for she was resolved not to marry him.

"Who are you goin' to marry, then?" he inquired, unconvinced.

"No one."

"Do you mean it fur really, that you'd ruther be a' ole maid?"

"I'd rather be SIX old maids than the wife of a Dutchman!"

"What fur kind of a man do you WANT, then?"

"Not the kind that grows in this township."

"Would you, mebbe," Absalom sarcastically inquired, "like such a dude
like what--"

"Absalom!" Tillie flashed her beautiful eyes upon him. "You are
unworthy to mention his name to me! Don't dare to speak to me of
him--or I shall leave you and go up-stairs RIGHT AWAY!"

Absalom sullenly subsided.

When, later, he left her, she saw that her firm refusal to marry him
had in no wise baffled him.

This impression was confirmed when on the next Sunday night, in spite
of her prohibition, he again presented himself.

Tillie was mortally weary that night. Her letter had not come, and her
nervous waiting, together with the strain of her unwonted work of
teaching, had told on her endurance. So poor Absalom's reception at her
hands was even colder than her father's greeting at the kitchen door;
for since Tillie's election to William Penn, Mr. Getz was more opposed
than ever to her marriage, and he did not at all relish the young man's
persistency in coming to see her in the face of his own repeated
warning.

"Tillie," Absalom began when they were alone together after the family
had gone to bed, "I thought it over oncet, and I come to say I'd ruther
have you 'round, even if you didn't do nothin' but set and knit mottos
and play the organ, than any other woman where could do all my
housework fur me. I'll HIRE fur you, Tillie--and you can just set and
enjoy yourself musin', like what Doc says book-learnt people likes to
do."

Tillie's eyes rested on him with a softer and a kindlier light in them
than she had ever shown him before; for such a magnanimous offer as
this, she thought, could spring only from the fact that Absalom was
really deeply in love, and she was not a little touched.

She contemplated him earnestly as he sat before her, looking so utterly
unnatural in his Sun