ow. I don't want them to think I've
been fighting."

He resigned himself into her hands, while she hunted among the
properties for the powder-puff and the comb, and then did her best to
conceal the great bruise on his temple, which had quickly swollen and
turned dark. But, even as she did so, she felt a sudden impulse to drop
the puff and run away, rather than meet the earnest gaze of the gray
eyes looking so steadily up into her own, and listen to the quiet "Thank
you," which greeted the end of the toilet, as the doctor rose and
stepped forward to take his place on the stage.

At the suggestion of Mr. Nelson, he had decided to read "Elizabeth"; and
Louise, as she stood at the side of the stage, listening to the quaint
old tale of the Quaker wooing, found herself forgetting all her
surroundings in the interest of the familiar story. Dr. Brownlee had
turned a little to one side, in order to conceal his discolored temple
from the audience, and this brought him into a position directly facing
the young woman who, quite unconsciously, made a charming picture in
the gown she had donned for the play. Just in the act of turning a leaf
of the book in his hand, the doctor raised his eyes, and they rested
upon her fair young face. As he did so, there rushed into his mind the
memory of her womanly pity and gentleness in caring for his bruise, and
he seemed to feel again the touch of her light hands upon his hair. He
paused; then, with his gaze still fixed upon her, he went on in his
quiet voice, low, but so distinct that not a syllable was lost on its
hearers,--

"'I have something to tell thee,
Not to be spoken lightly, nor in the presence of others.
Them it concerneth not, only thee and me it concerneth.'"

Just then Louise raised her eyes to his; but, as she met the intentness
of his look, her own eyes drooped, while the color rushed to her cheeks
and then fled again. For a moment more the doctor's eyes rested upon
her, then he went on with his reading; but his voice was unsteady and
his heart was throbbing with the sudden new hope that had come to him.

The reading was ended, and the curtain fell amid the enthusiastic
applause of the audience, who devoted the intermission to discussing
the performers, with a perfect unconsciousness of the fact that two of
them had entered upon a new life during the past hour. Though their
secret was as yet unspoken, that one look had taught both Louise and