e bare and the furniture was still jacketed in linen. Sylvia rose as
Harwood appeared at the parlor door.

"Pardon me," said Dan, as the maid vanished. "I have an errand with Mrs.
Owen and I'll wait, if you don't mind?"

"Certainly. Mrs. Owen has gone out to make a call, but she will be back
soon. She went only a little way down the street. Please have a chair."

She hesitated a moment, not knowing whether to remain or to leave the
young man to himself. Dan determined the matter for her by opening a
conversation on the state of the weather.

"September is the most trying month of the year. Just when we're all
tired of summer, it takes its last fling at us."

"It has been very warm. I came over from Montgomery this afternoon and
it was very dusty and disagreeable on the train."

"From Montgomery?" repeated Dan, surprised and perplexed. Then, as it
dawned upon him that this was the girl who had opened the door for him
at Professor Kelton's house in Montgomery when he had gone there with a
letter from Fitch, "You see," he said, "we've met before, in your own
house. You very kindly went off to find some one for me--and didn't come
back; but I passed you on the campus as I was leaving."

He had for the moment forgotten the name of the old gentleman to whom he
had borne a letter from Mr. Fitch. He would have forgotten the incident
completely long ago if it had not been for the curious manner in which
the lawyer had received his report and the secrecy so carefully
enjoined. It was odd that he should have chanced upon these people
again. Dan did not know many women, young or old, and he found this
encounter with Sylvia wholly agreeable, Sylvia being, as we know,
seventeen, and not an offense to the eye.

"It was my grandfather, Professor Kelton, you came to see. He's here
with me now, but he's gone out to call on an old friend with Mrs. Owen."

Every detail of Dan's visit to the cottage was clear in Sylvia's mind;
callers had been too rare for there to be any dimness of memory as to
the visit of the stranger, particularly when she had associated her
grandfather's subsequent depression with his coming.

Dan felt that he should scrupulously avoid touching upon the visit to
Montgomery otherwise than casually. He was still bound in all honor to
forget that excursion as far as possible. This young person seemed very
serious, and he was not sure that she was comfortable in his presence.

"It was a warm day, I remember, but