chooners, and even rode on the hand-car and was admitted to the
friendship of the superintendent. But, in the way of real intimacy, the
cottage and the saw-mill were his favorite haunts. He was with Marion a
part of every day; he teased her, laughed at her flowers, mimicked her
precise pronunciation, made caricatures of her friend Miss Drough, and
occasionally walked by with Nannie Barr, the most consummate little
flirt in the town. Marion changed--that is, inwardly. She was too proud
to alter her life outwardly, and, beyond putting away the chess-problem
book, and walking with Miss Drough in quiet paths through the andromeda
and smilax thickets, or out on the barrens among the saw-palmettoes,
rather than through the streets of the town, what she _did_ was the same
as usual. But she was not what she had been. She seemed to have become
timid, almost irresolute; she raised her eyes quickly and dropped them
as quickly: the old calm, steady gaze was gone; her color came and went.
She was still erect as ever: she could not change that; but she seemed
disposed to sit more in the shadow, or half behind the curtain, or to
withdraw to her own room, where the bolt was now often used which had
formerly rusted in its place. Bro noticed all this. Marion's ways had
not been changeable like those of most girls, and he had grown into
knowing them exactly: being a creature of precise habit himself, he now
felt uncomfortable and restless because she was so. At last he spoke to
her mother. "She is certainly changed: do you think there is any danger
of fever?" he asked uneasily. But Mrs. Manning only blinked and nodded
smilingly back in answer, holding up her finger to signify that Marion
was within hearing. Supposing that he had comprehended her, of course,
and glad to have a confidant, she now blinked and nodded at him from all
sides--from behind doors, from over Marion's head, from out of the
windows, even throwing her confidential delight to him across the river
as he stood in the saw-mill doorway. Marion, then, was going through
something--something not to be mentioned, but only mysteriously
nodded--which was beneficial to her; what could it be? She had taken to
going very frequently to church lately, in spite of her dislike to "the
worm," who still occupied the pulpit. Bro went back to the experience of
his youth in the up-country, the only experience he had to go back to,
and decided that she must be having what they used to call there