go with me, won't you, Fannie?"

"Anywhere," she said brokenly.

"Then come on."

Turning, he helped her into the buggy and they drove away, followed
by the invectives of Mrs. Bubble. The girl was in a tumult of emotion,
her whole little world clattering down about her ears. Bit by bit her
story came out. It was sordid enough and trivial enough, but to her it
was very real. That afternoon she had planned to go to the country for
ferns with a few girls, and they were to meet at the house of one of
her friends at one o'clock. Her stepmother had known about it three
days in advance, and had given her consent. When the time came,
however, she had suddenly insisted that Fannie stop to wash the
dishes, which would have made her a half-hour late. There followed
protest, argument, flat order and as flat refusal--then the handle of
the feather duster. It was not an unusual occurrence for her
stepmother to slap her, Fannie admitted in her bitterness. Her father,
pompous enough outside, was as wax in the hands of his termagant
second wife, and, though his sympathies were secretly with the girl,
he never dared protect her.

They had driven straight out the west road in the excitement, but
Wallingford, remembering in time his train schedule, made the
straightest _detour_ possible to the depot. He had barely time to buy
his tickets when the train came in, and he hurried Fannie into the
parlor car, her head still in a whirl and her confusion heightened by
the sudden appreciation of the fact that she had no hat. The stop at
Blakeville was but a brief one, and as the train moved away Fannie
looked out of the window and saw upon the platform of the little
depot, as if these people were a part of another world entirely, the
station agent, the old driver of the dilapidated 'bus, Bob Ranger and
others equally a part of her past life, all looking at her in
open-mouthed astonishment. Turning, as the last familiar outpost of
the town slipped by, she timidly reached out her hand and laid it in
that of Wallingford.

The touch of that warm hand laid on his electrified Wallingford. Many
women had loved him, or thought they did, and he had held them in more
or less contempt for it. He had regarded them as an amusement, as toys
to be picked up and discarded at will; but this, somehow, was
different. A sudden and startling resolve came to him, an idea so
novel that he smiled over it musingly for some little time before he
mentioned it.

"By