lay to the north of the lake. He had also
boasted that he had a secret way of finding the creek again. Upon
considering his character Ann believed that although the statement was
given boastfully it was true. Brown had a trace of Indian blood in him,
and possessed the faculties of keen observation and good memory. It was
by the help of this secret that she had hoped to extricate her father
herself. There was still a chance that she might be able to use it.

"Some men think the world and all of a woman if they can only get into
the notion that she is ill-used. David may be more sweet on you than
ever," said Ann to Christa. "Put on your white frock: it's a little
mussed, so it won't look as if you were trying to be fine; don't put on
any sash, but do your hair neatly."

She will look taking enough, thought Ann to herself; she did not
despise herself for the stratagem. It was part of the hard, practical
game that she had played all her life, for that matter; she was not
conscious of loving Christa any more than she was conscious of loving
her father. It was merely her will that they should have the utmost
advantage in life that she could obtain for them. Nothing short of a
moral revolution could have changed this determination in her.

When Christa had performed her toilet, obeying Ann from mere habit, Ann
drilled her in the thing she was to do. Brown would of course suspect
what this information was to be used for. Christa was to coax him to
promise secrecy. Ann went over the details of the plan again and again,
until she was quite sure that the shallow forgetful child understood the
importance of her mission.

Christa sat with her elbows on the table and cried a little. Her fair
hair was curled low over her eyes, the coarse white dress hung limp but
soft, leaving her neck bare. With all her motions her head nodded on her
slender graceful neck, like a flower which bows on its stalk.

Before this disaster Christa had spent her life laughing; that had been
more becoming to her than sullenness and tears. For all that, Ann was
not sorry that Christa's eyelids should be red when David Brown was seen
slowly lounging toward the window.

He had not been to see them the day before; it was apparent from his air
that he thought it was not quite the respectable thing to do to-day. He
tried to approach the house with a _nonchalant_, happen-by-chance air,
so that if any one saw him they would suppose his stopping merely
accidenta