your queer old uncle thinks necessary,
and I doubt if she knows about the grindstone, and the rest of it. I'd
laugh to see a great hulking fellow like you questioning her on such
subjects. I've a great mind to write out the lingo, and send it to her
anonymously, so she will be prepared to satisfy your uncle, who, I
fancy, is the Great Mogul of Crompton.

"I got quite chummy with Mrs. Brown before the exercises were over, and
she told me Eloise lived in North Mayville with her grandmother, and
that she was real glad she had a place to teach in Crompton, for she
needed it.

"'Poor?' I asked, feeling ashamed of myself for the question.

"But Mrs. Brown saw nothing wrong in it, and answered, 'Very.'

"Just then Bell nudged me again, and said, 'Let's go. We can get out
now. You don't care to see them receive their diplomas?'

"But I did, and sat it out till Eloise had hers, and I saw her face
again, and saw, too, what I had not noticed before, that her dress
looked poor and plain beside the others. Of course she's poor; but what
do I care for that? I am a good deal struck, you see, and if there were
nothing else to bring me to Crompton, Eloise would do it. So expect me
in September about the time her school commences. When will that be?

"Very truly,

"JACK HARCOURT."

CHAPTER III

ELOISE

It was a brown, old-fashioned house such as is common in New England,
with low ceilings, high windows, and small panes of glass, and in the
centre a great chimney of a fashion a hundred years ago. In the grass
plot at the side, where clothes were bleached and dried, there should
have been a well-sweep and curb to complete the picture, but instead
there was a modern pump where an elderly woman was getting water, and
throwing away three or four pails full, so that the last might be fresh
and sparkling for the coffee she was to make for the early breakfast.
Above the eastern hills the sun was rising, coloring everything with a
rosy tinge, and the air was full of the song which summer sings, of
flowers and happy insect life, when she is at her best. But the woman
neither heard the song nor saw the sunshine, her heart was so heavy with
thoughts of the parting which was so near.

"I can't let her know how bad I feel," she said, fighting back her
tears, as she prepared the dainty breakfast which she could scarcely
touch, but which her grand-daughter, Eloise, ate with the healthy
appetite of youth, and then turned her attenti