des, I slept for hours this morning. Come,
both of you. Breakfast is ready."

Phineas was already seated at the table, glancing over his shoulder at
the butler, whose look of dignified disgust at being obliged to wait
upon a countryman in his shirt sleeves would have been funny, if I had
been in a mood for fun. I don't know which was the more uncomfortable,
Cahoon or the butler.

"Won't you join us, Miss Colton?" I asked.

"Why--why, yes, perhaps I will, if you don't mind. I am not hungry but I
will take a cup of coffee, Johnson."

Phineas did almost all the talking while he remained with us, which was
not long. He swallowed his breakfast in a tremendous hurry, a proceeding
which still further discomposed the stately Johnson, and then rose and
put on his coat.

"I hate to leave you short handed and on a lee shore, Miss," he
explained, apologetically; "but I know you understand how 'tis with me.
My job's all I've got and I'll have to hang onto it. The up train's due
in forty minutes and I've got to be on hand at the deepo. However, I've
got that Davis feller's address and I'll raise him the first thing to
send his messages to me and I'll get 'em right down here by the reg'lar
telephone. He can use that--what-do-you-call-it?--that code thing, if
he's scart of anybody's findin' out what he says. The boss school-marm
of all creation couldn't read that gibberish without the book."

I hated to have him go, but there was no alternative. After he had
gone and she and I were left together at the table a sense of restraint
seemed to fall upon us both. To see her sitting opposite me at the
table, pouring my coffee and breakfasting with me in this intimate,
family fashion, was so wonderful and strange that I could think of
nothing else. It reminded me, in a way, of our luncheon at Seabury's
Pond, but that had been out of doors, an impromptu picnic, with all a
picnic's surroundings. This was different, quite different. It was so
familiar, so homelike, so conventional, and yet, for her and me, so
impossible. I looked at her and she, looking up at the moment, caught
my eyes. The color mounted to her cheeks. I felt my own face flushing.
Dorinda--practical, unromantic Dorinda--had guessed my feeling for this
girl; Mother had divined it. It was plain enough for anyone to read.
I glanced apprehensively at the butler, half expecting to see upon his
clerical countenance the look of scornful contempt which would prove
that he, too, wa