hind her and the father stepped out on the
porch. His quick glance took in the whole situation in an instant, and
recalling the conversation concerning the dog a few nights previously,
he asked with some curiosity, "What have you named your cat, Tabitha?"

Without lifting her eyes or manifesting any interest in the subject she
answered briefly, "Lynne Maximilian."

The man started as if he could not believe his ears, and then with an
almost audible chuckle of amusement, he descended the steps and strode
rapidly up the path toward the town.

CHAPTER VII

THE NEW BOY

There was a new boy at school.

In this little town with its ever changing population of miners and
fortune seekers, the advent of a stranger as a usual thing caused little
if any excitement. But with this boy it was different, though the
children could not have explained wherein he was unlike themselves. It
could not be his clothes, for Jimmy Gates, the hotel-keeper's son, was
the best-dressed boy in town; it could not be his appearance, for though
he was undoubtedly good-looking, he did not begin to be as handsome as
Herman Richards; it could not be the place where he lived, for the
Carson house was the largest and most attractive in town. And yet there
was something about him that won him a ready welcome wherever he went.

Tabitha was fairly hypnotized. She could not keep her eyes off him
whenever the opportunity to look in his direction came to her, which
fortunately was not often, as she sat in the front seat of the outside
row, while his desk was towards the rear of the room in the same row,
and they were both in nearly all the same classes, though he was
obviously some two or three years older than she. However, he was
further advanced in arithmetic, and recited in a different class, so she
could watch him during that lesson while he was working at the
blackboard, or sitting on the recitation bench in front of the whole
school. He had the loveliest red-brown curls and big, red-brown eyes
with long, heavy lashes! To be sure, his face was freckled, but he was
always laughing and one forgot the freckles in watching his flashing
white teeth or the dimples that came and went in his round cheeks.

Tabitha did not know that he hated these dimples almost as badly as she
did her name, and that his beautiful curls were a great trial to him, as
such things are to all boys of that tender age; but she did know that he
was different from any boy sh