r head in various
ways, her eyes fixed on her twisting image. Then, with a smile of
content, she blew out the candle. He saw the tiny red spark which
remained on the wick standing guard where she had left it. She must be
going to spend the evening somewhere and would demand his company,
Henley reflected, in dismay at the thought of his present fancies being
disturbed in such a prosaic way. Or perhaps she had taken a sudden whim
to go to prayer-meeting--this thought prompted by the dismal clanging of
a cast-iron church-bell at Chester. In that case there was a chance of
escape, for she would ask Mrs. Wrinkle to accompany her.

Suddenly she appeared on the porch, and came down the steps and tripped
lightly across the grass to him. He was conscious of the strange, almost
weird, alteration in her manner, and was therefore partially prepared
for the change in her voice and intonation.

"Is that you, Alfred?" she inquired, playfully. "I thought you might be
here, it is so close inside. You can always catch a breeze on this spot
if one is stirring at all."

"Yes, it's me," he answered, pulling his glance from the light across
the meadow and letting it rest on her face. "Are you going out
somewhere?"

She gave a little mechanical laugh. "Just because I put on this white
shawl?" she jested, her thin right hand toying with her bangs. "No,
there's no place to go that I know of, and if there _was_ I don't feel
in the humor for it to-night. Somehow I felt like I wanted to talk to
you. I hope Ma and Pa will go to bed; they are getting to be lots of
bother in one way and another. They mean well, the dear things, but they
are old and childish."

She sat down on the seat beside him and rested her elbow on its back,
her face toward him. "I saw you walking home with Dixie Hart this
evening," she remarked. "Did she say how that boy is getting on?"

"Why"--there was just the faintest pause on Henley's part; he was
conscious that he caught his breath, and that a warm, objectionable
flush was stealing over him--"why, I think he is mending purty fast.
I--I reckon there is no secret about it--Miss Dixie says she's adopted
him by process of law."

"Good gracious! You don't say! Why, that makes _three_ on her hands.
Well, she's a remarkable girl, Alfred, _and she's pretty_. Don't you
think so?" She was toying with the fringe of her shawl, and yet she
seemed to hang upon his answer as she gazed straight at him.

"Y-e-s," Henley said. "Sh