shed an' tended babies an' wore a uniform, just like any
other norphin, I guess. Slep' in the garret with the rats runnin' over
the floor, an' got up in the mornin' to the same old work. It warn't a
State institootion, you see; just a kind of a charity one, run by the
deacons of the church; I ain't got much use for charity."

"I shouldn't think you would have," he exclaimed. "But it's all behind
you now, Lou. We made fourteen miles to-day from Highvale--or will have
when we walk down the hill to Riverburgh to-morrow, and it is only sixty
miles further to New York."

"That's good," Lou said, but without enthusiasm. "Do we start at
sun-up?"

"I thought I'd like to work for Mrs. Bemis for a couple of hours first
and get the hay turned in that south field," Jim answered. "She's been
so good to us, and she'll need the stuff this winter for those two old
plugs out there."

He pointed out into the pasture, where two horses made mere blotches of
deeper shadow beneath a tree.

Lou laughed suddenly, softly, but it seemed to him that the rippling,
liquid note had vanished.

"What's funny?" he asked.

"Oh, nothin'. I was just thinkin' of you last night in that circus. You
rode so--so wonderfully. I wasn't laughin' at that, but it just come to
me how funny it would have been if any of your friends was to have seen
you!"

Jim glanced at her sharply, but in the starlight her face seemed merely
amused as at a whimsical thought.

"Why would it have been funny?" he insisted. "Of course I never rode in
a real circus before, and I guess I was pretty rotten, but why would my
friends have laughed?"

"I dunno." Lou dropped her arms from the fence-rail and turned away.
"Let's go back to the house. I--I'm pretty tired."

CHAPTER VII

Revelations

The next morning was a trying one for them both. Jim felt dully that
something was the matter, but the girl's manner baffled him, and he
could not make up his mind as to whether she had glanced in the
note-book or not. It did not seem like her to do so deliberately, but if
she had he could only make things worse by broaching the subject, since
he was not at the moment in a position to explain.

As for Lou, she was trying her best to appear her old self with him, but
dissimulation was an art in which she was as yet unversed, and her whole
nature rebelled against playing a part. Only her pride kept her from
betraying her disappointment in him and running away. She told herself