ntegrity of
his suspenders and would not come in the house, began to laugh
loudly.

"That man Tunk can see the comedy in all but himself," was Trove's
thought, as he returned with a smile of amusement.

Soon Trove and Polly came out and stood a while by the lilac bush,
at the gate.

"You worry me, Sidney Trove," said she, looking off at the moonlit
fields.

Then came a silence full of secret things, like the silences of
their first meeting, there by the same gate, long ago. This one,
however, had a vibration that seemed to sting them.

"I am sorry," said he, with a sigh.

Another silence in which the heart of the girl was feeling for the
secret in his.

"You are so sad, so different," she whispered.

Polly waited full half a minute for his answer. Then she touched
her eyes with her handkerchief, turned impatiently, and went
halfway to the door. Darrel caught her hand, drawing her near him.

"Give me thy hand, boy," said he to Trove, now on his way to the
door.

He stood with his arms around the two.

"Every shadow hath the wings o' light," he whispered. "Listen."

The house rang with laughter and the music of Money Musk.

"'Tis the golden bell of happiness," said he, presently. "Go an'
ring it. Nay--first a kiss."

He drew them close together, and they kissed each other's lips, and
with smiling faces went in to join the dance.

XXIX

Again the Uphill Road

Again the middle of September and the beginning of the fall term.
Trove had gone to his old lodgings at Hillsborough, and Polly was
boarding in the village, for she, too, was now in the uphill road
to higher learning. None, save Darrel, knew the secret of the
young man,--that he was paying her board and tuition. The thought
of it made him most happy; but now, seeing her every day had given
him a keener sense of that which had come between them. He sat
much in his room and had little heart for study. It was a cosey
room now. His landlady had hung rude pictures on the wall and
given him a rag carpet. On the table were pieces of clear quartz
and tourmaline and, about each window-frame, odd nests of bird or
insect--souvenirs of wood-life and his travel with the drove.
There, too, on the table were mementos of that first day of his
teaching,--the mirror spectacles with which he had seen at once
every corner of the schoolroom, the sling-shot and bar of iron he
had taken from the woodsman, Leblanc.

One evening of his first week a