positions of this kind; her life was
too busy, her anxieties too keen. The great dread looming ever before
her,--the dread of that hour when she must speak,--left her very little
heart for anything dissociated with this coming event. For a girl of
seventeen she was unusually thoughtful. Life had been hard in this
little cottage since her mother died, or rather she had felt its
responsibilities keenly.

Life itself could not be hard where Oswald Brotherson lived; neither to
man, nor woman. The cheer of some natures possesses a divine faculty. If
it can help no other way, it does so by the aid of its own light. Such
was the character of this man's temperament. The cottage was a happy
place; only--she never fathomed the depths of that only. If in these
days she essayed at times to do so, she gave full credit to the Dread
which rose ever before her--rose like a ghost! She, Doris, led by
inscrutable Fate, was waiting to hurt him who hurt nobody; whose mere
presence was a blessing.

But her interest had been caught to-day, caught by this stranger, and
when during her eager watch the small messenger from the Works came
to the door with the usual daily supply of books and magazines for the
patient, she stepped out on the porch to speak to him and to point out
the gentleman who was now rapidly returning from his stroll up the road.

"Who is that, Johnny?" she asked. "You know everybody who comes to town.
What is the name of the gentleman you see coming?"

The boy looked, searched his memory, not without some show of misgiving.

"A queer name," he admitted at last. "I never heard the likes of it here
before. Shally something. Shally--Shally--"

"Challoner?"

"Yes, that's it. How could you guess? He's from New York. Nobody knows
why he's here. Don't seem to have no business."

"Well, never mind. Run on, Johnny. And don't forget to come earlier
to-morrow; Mr. Brotherson gets tired waiting."

"Does he? I'll come quick then; quick as I can run." And he sped off at
a pace which promised well for the morrow.

Challoner! There was but one Challoner in the world for Doris
Scott,--Edith's father. Was this he? It must be, or why this haunting
sense of something half remembered as she caught a glimpse of his face.
Edith's father! and he was approaching, approaching rapidly, on his way
back to town. Would he stop this time? As the possibility struck her,
she trembled and drew back, entering the house, but pausing in the hall
with