if you liked it, wouldn't you?"

"I don't know what I should do. Come out with me!" Olive spoke almost
with fierceness.

"Well, you'll send them away no better than they came," said Matthias
Pardon.

"I guess you had better come round some other night," Selah suggested
pacifically, but with a significance which fell upon Olive's ear.

Mr. Gracie seemed inclined to make the sturdiest protest. "Look here,
Miss Tarrant; do you want to save Harvard College, or do you not?" he
demanded, with a humorous frown.

"I didn't know _you_ were Harvard College!" Verena returned as
humorously.

"I am afraid you are rather disappointed in your evening if you expected
to obtain some insight into our ideas," said Mrs. Tarrant, with an air
of impotent sympathy, to Mr. Gracie.

"Well, good-night, Miss Chancellor," she went on; "I hope you've got a
warm wrap. I suppose you'll think we go a good deal by what you say in
this house. Well, most people don't object to that. There's a little
hole right there in the porch; it seems as if Doctor Tarrant couldn't
remember to go for the man to fix it. I am afraid you'll think we're too
much taken up with all these new hopes. Well, we _have_ enjoyed seeing
you in our home; it quite raises my appetite for social intercourse. Did
you come out on wheels? I can't stand a sleigh myself; it makes me
sick."

This was her hostess's response to Miss Chancellor's very summary
farewell, uttered as the three ladies proceeded together to the door of
the house. Olive had got herself out of the little parlour with a sort
of blind, defiant dash; she had taken no perceptible leave of the rest
of the company. When she was calm she had very good manners, but when
she was agitated she was guilty of lapses, every one of which came back
to her, magnified, in the watches of the night. Sometimes they excited
remorse, and sometimes triumph; in the latter case she felt that she
could not have been so justly vindictive in cold blood. Tarrant wished
to guide her down the steps, out of the little yard, to her carriage; he
reminded her that they had had ashes sprinkled on the planks on purpose.
But she begged him to let her alone, she almost pushed him back; she
drew Verena out into the dark freshness, closing the door of the house
behind her. There was a splendid sky, all blue-black and silver--a
sparkling wintry vault, where the stars were like a myriad points of
ice. The air was silent and sharp, and the vague snow lo