t down by him again and
leaned forward till their eyes met.

"You did not mean to say that I'd do anything underhand, I'm sure," she
faltered. "I'm sure of it _now_."

"Oh no," he slowly shook his head and seemed to swallow an emotional
contraction in his throat. "I didn't mean any harm, but--but he _will_
be there, you say? He'll be there?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Tilly responded. "I suppose he will bring Martha
Jane. He usually does. But what of that?"

"He'll want to talk to you, I suppose?" John went on, his nether lip
hanging limp, his gaze steady.

"Why, yes--that is, maybe he will. Sometimes couples walk about between
the games and dances. I don't dance. My father and mother oppose it, and
our church does not sanction it; but you dance, don't you?"

"No, I've never even been to a dance. I hardly know what they are like.
The young folks at Ridgeville have them often at their club and at the
hotels and in their homes, but the boys are a lot of dudes that have
nothing else to do, and I hate them. I've always had to work for a
living and most of them are well off and look down on poor folks. People
here treat a fellow like me different somehow."

"It seems very strange that you don't dance," Tilly mused aloud,
"especially when you don't belong to the church. How does it happen that
you never joined?"

He shrugged and sniffed with uncurbed contempt, unaware of the fact that
what he was saying was an unheard-of thing in Tilly's circle. "I don't
believe in them," he jerked out. "They are a bunch of close-fisted,
grafting hypocrites. Most of them haven't the brains of a gnat. I've
helped build meeting-houses, run against the leaders, and know their
private lives. They say they believe there is a God-- I don't!"

Tilly sighed unresentfully. "You will see it differently some day," she
said. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Will I? Try me," he laughed, and he sat eagerly waiting for her to
continue.

In her earnestness she put her hand on his knee as she leaned closer to
him. "Then don't tell father how you feel about it--please don't. You
don't know him. You can't imagine how furious that would make him. A man
stopped at our house once to stay overnight. He was selling
harvesting-machines, and after supper he and my father had an argument
on the veranda. He said--the man said something like what you've just
said to me, and father made him leave the house--made him pack up and
leave at once, for father said it woul