ght I ought to get as early a start as possible. I made
the coffee right away. I did not know but you might be back in a
little while."

"Oh, I had breakfast long ago. I went out to see if I could get your
horse for you. But I did n't catch sight of him. I hunted for him
longer than I realized. It is quite a distance for you to walk, and I
thought we might fix up some way for you to ride."

"That was very kind of you, Mr. Brown. I shall be quite able to walk.
It was only necessary for me to be shown the direction."

"The road is over that way," he said, indicating its position with his
arm. "Keep in that direction a while and you will strike a
wagon-trail. Then follow that and it will bring you right out on the
road. After you get to the road, you will find a house about a mile to
the right. That is, if you intend to go that way."

"I am from Merrill, Mr. Brown. I am on my way to the county-seat. For
the past week I have been teaching school a few miles from Merrill. It
is the little white schoolhouse near Crystal Spring."

"A teacher!" he exclaimed.

"I can hardly claim to be a teacher," she answered. "The girl who has
that school was called home by the death of her brother. I have only
been substituting. I am on my way to Belleview to take a teacher's
examination."

As Janet offered this conscientious information, Steve Brown looked in
vain for any allusion to her secretiveness of the night before. In her
bearing there was not the least vestige of arts and airs, nor any
little intimation of mutual understanding; she simply looked up with
wide-open eyes and told it to him. This honesty, quite as if she owed
it, gave Steve a new experience in life; and he gazed into eyes that
charmed him by the clarity of their look.

"You are going to the court-house to get a certificate!" he remarked.

"I do not belong here in Texas," she said, continuing her story. "I am
from Ohio. I am stopping with the Dwights, down at Merrill. But for
the past week I have been stopping at a farmer's in order to be nearer
the school."

"Will you be going back to Ohio, possibly?"

"It might be that I shall go back. But it all depends. I may get a
school if I pass."

She stepped forward to take leave of him. But just at that moment he
thrust both hands deep into his pockets and bent his gaze intently upon
the ground, his brows knit together. She waited.

"Miss Janet," he said, looking up suddenly, "I would be