oundness about the shoulder-blades, noticeable in the side view as he
carefully stood a long, queer package that was not buggy-whips against
the hat-rack, it would have been fair to pronounce him an athlete.

The eyes of the fireside group were turned toward him; but not upon
him. They rested on a girl of sixteen who had come down the hall, and
was standing before the new-comer just beyond the door. The
registry-book was just there on a desk in the hall. She stood with a
freshly dipped pen in her hand, ignoring the gaze from the fireside
with a faintly overdone calmness of face. The new guest came forward,
and, in a manner that showed slender acquaintance with the operation,
slowly registered his name and address.

He did it with such pains-taking, that, upside down as the writing
was, she read it as he wrote. As the Christian name appeared, her
perfunctory glance became attention. As the surname followed, the
attention became interest and recognition. And as the address was
added, Mr. Tarbox detected pleasure dancing behind the long fringe of
her discreet eyes, and marked their stolen glance of quick inspection
upon the short, dark locks and strong young form still bent over the
last strokes of the writing. But when he straightened up, carefully
shut the book, and fixed his brown eyes upon hers in guileless
expectation of instructions, he saw nothing to indicate that he was
not the entire stranger that she was to him.

"You done had sopper?" she asked. The uncommon kindness of such a
question at such an hour of a tavern's evening was lost on the young
man's obvious inexperience, and as one schooled to the hap-hazard of
forest and field he merely replied:

"Naw, I didn' had any."

The girl turned--what a wealth of black hair she had!--and disappeared
as she moved away along the hall. Her voice was heard: "Mamma?" Then
there was the silence of an unheard consultation. The young man moved
a step or two into the parlor and returned toward the door as a light
double foot-fall approached again down the hall and the girl appeared
once more, somewhat preceded by a small, tired-looking, pretty woman
some thirty-five years of age, of slow, self-contained movement and
clear, meditative eyes.

But the guest, too, had been re-enforced. A man had come silently from
the fireside, taken his hand, and now, near the doorway, was softly
shaking it and smiling. Surprise, pleasure, and reverential regard
were mingled in the young ma