get home from a party, whether Joel and Tilly got together? You see, few
folks sympathize with her hard-shell old daddy, and everybody loves
Joel--everybody, man, woman, and child. And I know why. It is because he
is so fine, noble, and constant. Some think--some few--that Tilly will
give in to her father and drop Joel, but take it from me--and I'm a
girl--she won't. She loves him--down deep she loves him, for no girl
could help it. She wouldn't be a true woman if she went back on
adoration like that. He is not handsome, but there is something in him
too sweet and good to talk about. Once we all were arguing at
Sunday-school whether anybody could actually forgive an enemy, and
nearly all of us agreed that we couldn't but that Joel Eperson could.
Wasn't that funny? When I talk to him I feel restful. If I was about to
do a bad thing and he spoke to me, I'd throw it up. He did once, but
never mind about that. It is too long to tell you now. But I'll
always--always love him for what he did and said right while I was
wavering."

John now saw that Joel had given Tilly his arm and was leading her
across the grass to a rustic seat under an oak-tree. The circle of forms
and faces became blurred to John's sight. There was much laughter, much
darting to and fro across the ring, but John heard only the voice of
the little analyst at his elbow.

"There they go for the second dose of soothing-syrup," she twittered.
"Old man Whaley doesn't know which side his bread is buttered on. By
trying to keep them apart he is only driving them together. 'Absence
makes the heart grow fonder,' and so does opposition. That pair is
lapping up stolen sweets to-night."

CHAPTER XV

The game was breaking up. The couples were moving toward the house. John
was desperate enough to have shaken the unconscious tantalizer now on
his arm. He could think of nothing to say and didn't care what his
companion thought about his inattention. He was wondering why Martha
Jane Eperson had said what she had said, and why he had been so foolish
as to believe it. Perhaps she had a motive. Perhaps it was sarcasm born
in the knowledge of his presumption. For aught he knew, she might now be
laughing over his credulity.

John was only a boy, and a crude one. Without excusing himself from his
companion, he left her at the steps and abruptly stalked away. He had
his choice of entering the crowded farm-house or sauntering about the
grounds. Taking a cigar from h