and the girl,
with the narrow forehead and close, deep-set eyes, was there,
pathologically indicating tendencies to kleptomania. But far outweighing
these were the straight, courageous bearing and the tender faces of
normal promise. Sturdy manhood and womanhood was written across the
countenances of many who had answered the call of Jane's horn!

Nancy was not one of this wholesome medley. She was being especially
taught aside;--and now, on this mid-May day, Jane sat with her beneath
the trees while the room within was wrapped in the unrestful silence of
tedious thought. Occasionally the teacher glanced at her when she
happened to sigh and bend more intently over the knotty problem on her
lap. Dale might have been here with them, for he had made strides during
the past four weeks which put him far in the van, and Jane was
satisfying this bewildering pace with extra work for the afternoons at
home. For his was, indeed, a bewildering pace, spurred by an insatiable
ambition that had become brutal in its determination to absorb every
lesson, every fact and figure, every little jot of information which her
schoolhouse and the Colonel's library contained. His time, from early
morning until late at night, was divided between these places; but he
advanced with so much greater speed in the seclusion of Arden that Jane
had lately persuaded him to work there, rather than be subjected to the
schoolroom noises which were as multitudinous as they were unavoidable.
Thus it was that she and Nancy now sat alone beneath the trees.

The morning was warm and without a breath of air. A two weeks' drought,
unusual at this season, had parched the country, bringing the wheat
prematurely to head and causing anxiety about the hemp. But since
tobacco, the most important crop, would not be set out till June, this
agricultural unrest permeated little farther than impolite remarks about
the weather. True, some of the springs were going dry, and all low
verdure beside the pike was bedraggled and bowed beneath a coat of
white dust. Out across the meadows of tired grass, and above the
yellow fields prepared and waiting in sultry patience for their Lady
Nicotiana,--everywhere along the level stretches that eye could
sweep--were tormenting, dancing heat waves. Sleepy-eyed cattle spent
their inert hours standing in the pasture pools with the water about
their knees, or mingling with groups of sweaty brood mares clustered in
the shady places. Dogs could