essness came. That anguish and desperation, so old in her sex, the
rebellion against the law that inaction must be her part, had fallen
upon her for the first time. She came to an abrupt stop and struck her
hands together despairingly, and spoke aloud.

"What shall I do! What shall I do!"

"Ma'am?" asked a surprised voice, just behind her.

She wheeled quickly about, to behold a shock-headed urchin of ten in
the path near the little clearing. He was ragged, tanned, dusty, neither
shoes nor coat trammelling his independence; and he had evidently
entered the garden through the gap in the hedge.

"I thought you spoke to me?" he said, inquiringly.

"I didn't see you," she returned. "What is it?"

"You Miss Carewe?" he asked; but before she could answer he said,
reassuringly, "Why, of course you are! I remember you perfect, now I git
the light on you, so to speak. Don't you remember me?"

"No, I don't think I do."

"Lord!" he responded, wonderingly. "I was one of the boys with you on
them boxes the night of your pa's fire!" Mingled with the surprise in
his tone was a respectful unction which intimated how greatly he honored
her father for having been the owner of so satisfactory a conflagration.

"Were you? Perhaps I'll remember you if you give me time."

But at this point the youth recalled the fact that he had an errand
to discharge, and, assuming an expression of businesslike haste too
pressing to permit farther parley, sought in his pocket and produced a
sealed envelope, with which he advanced upon her.

"Here. There's an answer. He told me not to tell nobody who sent it, and
not to give it to nobody on earth but you, and how to slip in through
the hedge and try and find you in the garden when nobody was lookin',
and he give a pencil for you to answer on the back of it, and a dollar."

Miss Betty took the note, glancing once over her shoulder at the house,
but Mrs. Tanberry was still occupied with the Maiden, and no one was in
sight. She read the message hastily.

"I have obeyed you, and shall always. You have not sent for me. Perhaps
that was because there was no time when you thought it safe. Perhaps you
have still felt there would be a loss of dignity. Does that weigh with
you against good-by? Tell me, if you can, that you have it in your heart
to let me go without seeing you once more, without good-by--for the last
time. Or was it untrue that you wrote me what you did? Was that dear
letter but a little