sighed, "she is very odd."

Then she added, "Don't you let her know that I asked you about her
letters."

"No," said Boyne. His audience was apparently at an end, but he seemed
still to have something on his mind. "Momma," he began afresh.

"Well?" she answered, a little impatiently.

"Nothing. Only I got to thinking, Is a person able to control
their--their fancies?"

"Fancies about what?"

"Oh, I don't know. About falling in love." Boyne blushed.

"Why do you want to know? You musn't think about such things, a boy like
you! It's a great pity that you ever knew anything about that Bittridge
business. It's made you too bold. But it seems to have been meant to
drag us down and humiliate us in every way."

"Well, I didn't try to know anything about it," Boyne retorted.

"No, that's true," his mother did him the justice to recognize. "Well,
what is it you want to know?" Boyne was too hurt to answer at once, and
his mother had to coax him a little. She did it sweetly, and apologized
to him for saying what she had said. After all, he was the youngest,
and her baby still. Her words and caresses took effect at last, and he
stammered out, "Is everybody so, or is it only the Kentons that seem
to be always putting--well, their affections--where it's perfectly
useless?"

His mother pushed him from her. "Boyne, are you silly about that
ridiculous old Miss Rasmith?"

"No!" Boyne shouted, savagely, "I'm NOT!"

"Who is it, then?"

"I sha'n't tell you!" Boyne said, and tears of rage and shame came into
his eyes.

XXI.

In his exile from his kindred, for it came practically to that, Boyne
was able to add a fine gloom to the state which he commonly observed
with himself when he was not giving way to his morbid fancies or his
morbid fears, and breaking down in helpless subjection to the nearest
member of his household. Lottie was so taken up with her student that
she scarcely quarrelled with him any more, and they had no longer those
moments of union in which they stood together against the world. His
mother had cast him off, as he felt, very heartlessly, though it was
really because she could not give his absurdities due thought in view of
the hopeful seriousness of Ellen's affair, and Boyne was aware that
his father at the best of times was ignorant of him when he was not
impatient of him. These were not the best of times with Judge Kenton,
and Boyne was not the first object of his impatience. In the last
an