that with God long ago. It is all right
between us."

Miss Pray, confused by Vesty's look, blushed painfully.

"Thank you for asking me about it," I said gently.

At that Miss Pray rose. "Come; le's play words," she said.

So the girl and the woman folded their sewing, and Miss Pray brought
from some hitherto unknown recreative source a little box of cardboard
letters, and we sat at the table together.

Miss Pray and Vesty thoughtfully selected some letters and shook them
together and handed them each to me to make into words. I gave them
each a word.

The letters I gave Miss Pray composed a simple and striking feature of
the Basin vocabulary, "w-h-a-l-e."

Those I gave Vesty I studied to make a little more difficult,
"c-o-n-t-i-n-u-e."

Miss Pray gave me three letters. It happened as I dropped them on the
table that they fell of themselves into complete literary sequence,
"c-o-w." But Vesty handed me eleven shuffled letters, a ladylike
aspiration, and looked at me with a little appealing blush--the Basin
school is so brief, so limited in its curriculum.

Miss Pray put on her glasses and studied wearily and long on her
letters, placing them every way. I saw that she had them now at last,
"w-h-a-l-e," but was regarding them as blankly as ever.

"Pray do not move them again," I cried hopefully, finding the game more
exciting than I had anticipated. "You have it, 'w-h-a-l-e,'
whale--see?"

Miss Pray looked shocked and dubious. I saw at once that she was
suffering under the sorrowful mental conviction that I had spelled the
word wrongly: but that she was resolved not again to wound my feelings.
She turned to assist Vesty.

"That," she said at length, struck by some suggestive combination,
"might be 'continnu,' Vesty, ef it had more 'n's and no 'e'."

"Oh," said Vesty, pleased and enlightened. "But major knows," she
added promptly, "about the spelling."

"I have your word, you see, Vesty," I said. "'S-e-p-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n.'"

I had it spread out proudly on the table. She looked at me and blushed
again. I smiled, only as I would at a priceless child.

"You _are_ cute at _guessin'_, major," said Miss Pray admiringly; but I
saw that she held me deficient in the classical prearrangement of
words, and that the game had lost interest to her on that account. So
we laid it by.

When Vesty rose to go home, "I will go with you," I said, wrapping my
sad little presence in an overcoat.

Miss Pray loo