k them very seriously, regarding her acts with
a grave and serene sense of their importance. She had put back the
wild hair that used to fly about her face until her father called her
"An owl in an ivy bush" and her mother admonished her that her "head
was like a mop." Now, being in her teens, she wore her dresses longer
and never ran about barefooted, paddling in the brook below the
spring, although she would like to do so; still she was child enough
to run when she should walk, and to laugh when some would sigh.

Her thoughts had been romantically active regarding Peter Junior, how
he would look, and how splendid and great he was to have been a real
soldier and come home wounded--to have suffered and bled for his
country. And Richard, too, was brave and splendid. He must have been
in the very front of the battle to have been taken prisoner. She
wondered a little if he remembered her, but not much, for how could
men with great work to do, like fighting and dying for their country,
stop to think of a little girl who was still in short dresses when
they had seen her last?

Then, when the war was ended at last, there was Richard returned and
stopping at his uncle's. In the few short visits he made at the
Ballards' he greeted Betty as of old, as he would greet a little
sister of whom he was fond, and she accepted his frank, old-time
brotherliness in the same spirit, gayly and happily, revealing but
little of herself, and holding a slight reserve in her manner which
seemed to him quite delightful and maidenly. Then, all too suddenly,
he was gone again, but in his heart he carried a memory of her that
made a continual undercurrent in his thoughts.

And now Betty's father and mother were actually talking with Peter
Junior at their very gate. Impulse would have sent her flying to meet
him, but that new, self-conscious shyness stayed her feet, for he was
one to be approached with reverence. He was afflicted with no romantic
shyness with regard to her, however. He quite forgot her, indeed,
although he did ask in a general way after the children and even
mentioned Martha in particular, as, being the eldest, she was best
remembered. So Betty did not see Peter Junior this time, but she stood
where she could see the top of the carriage from her bedroom window,
whither she had fled, and she could see the blue sleeve of his coat as
he put out his arm to take her mother's hand at parting. That was
something, and she listened with be