g her of caring for Keith.

"He has evidently not proposed yet. If she were a little older I should
be certain of it," she said to herself as she drove away; "but these
girls are so secretive one can never tell about them. Even I could not
look as innocent as that to save my life if I were interested."

That evening Keith called at The Lawns. He did not take with him a
placid spirit. Mrs. Nailor's shaft had gone home, and it rankled. He
tried to assure himself that what people were thinking had nothing to do
with him. But suppose Miss Abigail took this view of the matter? He
determined to ascertain. One solution of the difficulty lay plain before
him: he could go away. Another presented itself, but it was
preposterous. Of all the women he knew Lois Huntington was the least
affected by him in the way that flatters a man. She liked him, he knew;
but if he could read women at all, and he thought he could, she liked
him only as a friend, and had not a particle of sentiment about him. He
was easy, then, as to the point Mrs. Nailor had raised; but had he the
right to subject Lois to gossip? This was the main thing that troubled
him. He was half angry with himself that it kept rising in his mind. He
determined to find out what her aunt thought of it, and decided that he
could let that direct his course. This salved his conscience. Once or
twice the question dimly presented itself whether it were possible that
Lois could care for him. He banished it resolutely.

When he reached The Lawns, he found that Miss Abigail was sick, so the
virtuous plan he had formed fell through. He was trying to fancy himself
sorry; but when Lois came out on the verandah in dainty blue gown which
fell softly about her girlish figure, and seated herself with
unconscious grace in the easy-chair he pushed up for her, he knew that
he was glad to have her all to himself. They fell to talking about
her aunt.

"I am dreadfully uneasy about her," the girl said. "Once or twice of
late she has had something like fainting spells, and the last one was
very alarming. You don't know what she has been to me." She looked up at
him with a silent appeal for sympathy which made his heart beat. "She is
the only mother I ever knew, and she is all I have in the world." Her
voice faltered, and she turned away her head. A tear stole down her
cheek and dropped in her lap. "I am so glad you like each other. I hear
you are engaged," she said suddenly.

He was startled; it