he held the
candle. "Besides, you don't allow it yourself."

"Polly ought to go away to school," said he, after Polly had gone
above stairs. "She's a bright girl."

"And I so poor I'm always wondering what'll happen to-morrow," said
Mrs. Vaughn. "The farm has a mortgage, and it's more than I can do
to pay the interest. Some day I'll have to give it up."

"Perhaps I can help you," said the young man, feeling the fur on
his cap.

There was an awkward silence.

"Fact is," said the young man, a bit embarrassed, "fact is, I love
Polly."

In the silence that followed Trove could hear the tick of his watch.

"Have ye spoken to her?" said the widow, with a serious look.

"I've told her frankly to-night that I love her," said he. "I
couldn't help it, she was so sweet and beautiful."

"If you couldn't help it, I don't see how I could," said she. "But
Polly's only a child. She's a big girl, I know, but she's only
eighteen."

"I haven't asked her for any promise. It wouldn't be fair. She
must have a chance to meet other young men, but, sometime, I hope
she will be my wife."

"Poor children!" said Mrs. Vaughn, "you don't either of you know
what you're doing."

He rose to go.

"I was a little premature," he added, "but you mustn't blame me.
Put yourself in my place. If you were a young man and loved a girl
as sweet as Polly and were walking home with her on a moonlit
night--"

"I presume there'd be more or less love-making," said the widow.
"She is a pretty thing and has the way of a woman. We were
speaking of you the other day, and she said to me: 'He is
ungrateful. You can teach the primer class for him, and be so good
that you feel perfectly miserable, and give him lessons in dancing,
and put on your best clothes, and make biscuit for him, and then,
perhaps, he'll go out and talk with the hired man.' 'Polly,' said
I, 'you're getting to be very foolish.' 'Well, it comes so easy,'
said she. 'It's my one talent'"

XX

At the Theatre of the Woods

Next day Trove went home. He took with him many a souvenir of his
first term, including a scarf that Polly had knit for him, and the
curious things he took from the Frenchman Leblanc, and which he
retained partly because they were curious and partly because Mrs.
Leblanc had been anxious to get rid of them. He soon rejoined his
class at Hillsborough, having kept abreast of it in history and
mathematics by work after school and over the week's en