scious wisdom, but she
still smiled. Again her eyes met the young man's, and her innocently
admiring gaze was full upon his, and that happened which was
inevitable, one of the chain of sequences of life itself. His own
eyes responded ardently, and the girl's eyes fell before the man's.
At the same time there was no ulterior significance in the man's
look, which was merely in evidence of a passing emotion to which he
was involuntarily subject. He had not the slightest thought of any
love, which his look seemed to express for this little beauty of a
girl, whose name he did not even know. But he slackened his pace, and
Evelyn walked timidly beside him over the golden net-work of sunlight
in the path. Evelyn spoke first.

"You came from Edgham, Mr. Lee," she said.

Wollaston looked at her. "Yes. Do you know anybody there?"

Evelyn laughed. "I came from there myself," she said, "and so did my
sister, Maria. Maria is one of the teachers, you know."

Evelyn wondered why Mr. Lee's face changed, not so much color but
expression.

"Oh, you are Miss Edgham's sister?" he exclaimed.

"Yes. I am her sister--her half-sister."

"Let me see; you are in the senior class."

"Yes," replied Evelyn. Then she added, "Did you remember my sister?"

"Oh yes," replied Wollaston. "We used to go to school together."

"She cannot have altered," said Evelyn. "She always looks just the
same to me, anyway."

"She does to me," said Lee, and there was in inflection in his voice
which caused Evelyn to give a startled glance at him. But he
continued, quite naturally, "Your sister looks just as I remember
her, only, of course, a little taller and more dignified."

"Maria is dignified," said Evelyn, "but of course she has taught
school a long time, and a school-teacher has to be dignified."

"Are you intending to teach school?" asked Lee, and even as he asked
the question he felt amused. The idea of this flower-like thing
teaching school, or teaching anything, was absurd. She was one of the
pupils of life, not one of the expounders.

"No, I think not," said Evelyn. Then she said, "I have never thought
about it." Then an incomprehensible little blush flamed upon her
cheeks. Evelyn was thinking that she should be married instead of
doing anything else, but that the man did not consider. He was
singularly unversed in feminine nature.

A bell rang from the academy, and Evelyn turned about with
reluctance. "There is the bell," said she. She was