ut conditions to be bettered. She wore her black
silk no more, lest in her sedentary durance she should "set it out," and
her delaine wrapper with palm-leaves seemed to Stella like the
archipelagoes they used to define at school, and inspired her to nervous
laughter. It was the early evening, and Mrs. Joyce, not entirely free
from her muscular fetters, went back and forth from table to sink,
doing the dishes, while Stella moulded bread.

There was a step on the icy walk. Stella stopped an instant, her hands
on the cushion of dough, the red creeping into her face. Then she dusted
her palms together and went ever so softly but quickly to the front
entry, closing the door behind her. Aunt Hill, pricking up her ears,
heard the outer door open and the note of a man's voice.

"You see 'f you can tell who that is," she counseled Mrs. Joyce, who
presently approached the door and laid a hand on the latch. But it
stuck, she thought with wonder. Stella was holding it from the other
side.

Jerry, in his Sunday clothes, stood out there on the step, and Stella
was facing him. There was a note of concern in her voice when she
spoke--of mirth, too, left there by aunt Hill's archipelagoes.

"O Jerry," she said, "I'm awful sorry. You needn't ha' come over
to-night."

"She ain't gone, has she?" inquired Jerry, in a voice of perilous
distinctness.

"Don't speak so loud. She's got ears like a fox. No, but I could ha' put
her off somehow. I never thought of your comin' over to-night."

"Well, I thought of it," said Jerry. "I ain't seen your mother for quite
a spell."

"Oh, she's all right now. There! I feel awfully not to ask you in, but
aunt Hill's ankle an' all--good-night."

He turned away after a look at the bright knocker that, jumping out at
him from the dusk, almost made it seem as if the door had been shut in
his face. But he went crunching down the path, and Stella returned, to
wash her hands at the sink and resume her moulding.

"Law!" said aunt Hill, "your cheeks are 's red as fire. Who was it out
there?"

"Jerry Norton." Stella's voice sank, in spite of her. That unswerving
gaze on her cheeks made her feel out in the world, in a strong light,
for curiosity to jeer at.

"Jerry Norton?" aunt Hill was repeating in a loud voice. "Well, I'll be
whipped if it ain't Saturday night an' you've turned him away ag'in.
What's got into you, Stella? I never thought you was one to blow hot an'
blow cold when it come to a fellow