id," said he.

"No, I'm not," she told him, drawing a little nearer, quite unconsciously,
he knew, as she spoke. "I was thinking how dreadful it must be here for
you, especially in the night. But it will not be for long," she cheered
him; "we know they'll soon set you free."

"I suppose a person would think a guilty man would suffer more here than
an innocent one," said he, "but I don't think that's so. That man down
there knows he's going to be sent to the penitentiary for stealing a
horse, but he sings."

She was looking at him, a little cloud of perplexity in her eyes, as if
there was something about him which she had not looked for and did not
quite understand. She blushed when Joe turned toward her, slowly, and
caught her eyes at their sounding.

He was thinking over a problem new to him, also--the difference in
women. There was Ollie, who marked a period in his life when he began to
understand these things, dimly. Ollie was not like this one in any
particular that he could discover as common between them. She was far
back in the past today, like a simple lesson, hard in its hour, but
conquered and put by. Here was one as far above Ollie as a star.

Miss Price began to speak of books, reaching out with a delicate
hesitancy, as if she feared that she might lead into waters too deep for
him to follow. He quickly relieved her of all danger of embarrassment on
that head by telling her of some books which he had not read, but wished
to read, holding to the bars as he talked, looking wistfully toward the
spot of sunlight which was now growing as slender as a golden cord
against the gray wall. His eyes came back to her face, to find that look
of growing wonder there, to see her quick blush mount and consume it in
her eyes like a flame.

"You've made more of the books that you've read than many of us with a
hundred times more," said she warmly. "I'll be ashamed to mention books
to you again."

"You oughtn't say that," said he, hanging his head in boyish confusion,
feeling that same sense of shyness and desire to hide as came over him
when his mother recounted his youthful campaign against the three books
on the Newbolt shelf.

"You remember what you get out of them," she nodded gravely, "I don't."

"My father used to say that was one advantage in having a few," said
he.

The colonel joined them then, the loud-spoken benediction of the
horse-thief following him. There was a flush of indignation in his face
and