ted me to a boarding-place that he had engaged for me. So I came
by yesterday evening's train, and sent word that I was here. This
morning he called and told me--with most oppressive civility--that as
I had not answered his last letter, the place had been given to some
one else. He said 'professional etiquette' here demands an answer in
such a case, and failure to answer is equivalent to a withdrawal of
the application."

"He lied," said Will, parenthetically, walking along with his eyes on
the ground; she, on the contrary, looked at him often, with frank
directness.

"He did not impress me," she said, "as the soul of candor. I said as
little as possible to him, but when he was gone I asked about the rest
of the committee, and as soon as I heard your name I hoped it was you;
I knew you were somewhere in California. This afternoon I received his
letter written to prevent my coming. It had followed me up here by the
same train that I came on." She held the letter in her hand, and Will
quietly took it and kept it. "I would not raise any controversy about
such a thing," she went on, "if I had any idea in the world where else
to go or what to do." Her voice sharpened a little again, with a note
of pathos.

Will did not know how to answer without seeming to question or
comment, so there came a pause; then he said:

"This Coakley was an electioneering agent of Garvey's, and doesn't
know enough to teach babies. He seems to have turned up suddenly
wanting help, and the Judge is willing enough to keep him on hand and
under obligations until next election."

Miss Northrop stopped short and looked at him with brows a little
raised, and her bearing became impalpably more distant.

"But I cannot enter into contest with--these men for permission to
teach school here," she said.

She was right, in her quick feeling that Will Strong's training could
not have made work and discomfort and contact with vulgarity seem
outside the sphere of women. If it had been one of his own sisters he
would have said: "Oh, well, we have to take the world as we find it.
Brace up, little girl; I'll put you safe through, and you'll find it's
not so bad, after all."

But what he said to Winifred Northrop was: "It is outrageous! Such
brutes as Garvey have no business to look at a lady! If you really
prefer not to take the school," he went on, with some embarrassment,
"I hope you will call on me to help you in any other way; but if you
want the schoo