no sound, save the sound of the
rain, and, now and then, the soft sigh that escaped Marjorie's lips.

How strange it was, she reasoned with herself, for her to care at all!
What if Hollis did not want to answer that last letter of hers, written
more than two months ago, just after Linnet's wedding day? That had been
a long letter; perhaps too long. But she had been so lonesome, missing
everybody. Linnet, and Morris, and Mr. Holmes, and Miss Prudence had gone
to her grandfather's for the sea bathing, and the girl had come to help
her mother, and she had walked over to his mother's and talked about
everything to her and then written that long letter to him, that long
letter that had been unanswered so long. When his letter was due she had
expected it, as usual, and had walked to the post-office, the two miles
and a half, for the sake of the letter and having something to do. She
could not believe it when the postmaster handed her only her father's
weekly paper, she stood a moment, and then asked, "Is that all?" And the
next week came, and the next, and the next, and no letter from him; and
then she had ceased, with a dull sense of loss and disappointment, to
expect any answer at all. Her mother inquired briskly every day if her
letter had come and urged her to write a note asking if he had received
it, for he might be waiting for it all this time, but shyness and pride
forbade that, and afterward his mother called and spoke of something
that he must have read in that letter. She felt how she must have
colored, and was glad that her father called her, at that moment, to help
him shell corn for the chickens.

When she returned to the house, brightened up and laughing, her mother
told her that Mrs. Rheid had said that Hollis had begun to write to her
regularly and she was so proud of it. "She says it is because you are
going away and he wants her to hear directly from him; I guess, too, it's
because he's being exercised in his mind and thinks he ought to have
written oftener before; she says her hand is out of practice and the
Cap'n hates to write letters and only writes business letters when it's a
force put. I guess she will miss you, Marjorie."

Marjorie thought to herself that she would.

But Marjorie's mother did not repeat all the conversation; she did not
say that she had followed her visitor to the gate and after glancing
around to be sure that Marjorie was not near had lowered her voice and
said:

"But I do th