dered if his old friend would be there. Yes, the
door was open, and for a moment Steve stood on the platform in front,
his tall figure erect, his head bared as he looked reverently towards
the little home which had opened the world of books to him. Then Mr.
Follet's high voice rang out from the dark depths where dry-goods and
groceries rioted in hopeless confusion as of old.

"Hello, stranger, what's the time o' day?"

Steve stepping forward put out an eager hand, and cried:

"Mr. Follet, don't you know me?"

But the man only stared, coming forward into the light of the
doorway.

"Never saw you before," he declared at last; "or if I did, can't tell
where under the cano_pee_ 'twas."

Steve laughed with keen enjoyment at hearing the familiar old
expression, and said eagerly:

"Don't you remember Steve, little Steve Langly who worked for you one
summer?"

"Steve!" exclaimed Mr. Follet; "of course I do; nobody at my house
has forgotten him, not by a jugful,--but this ain't Steve!"

"This _is_ Steve though, Mr. Follet,--the same Steve, with just as
grateful a heart for you and Mrs. Follet as I had the day I left you
about a dozen years ago."

"Well, this does beat me," said Mr. Follet. "We'll lock right up and
go over to the house. My wife and Nancy will be powerful glad to see
you if they can ever think who under the cano_pee_ you are." And he
stepped briskly about locking up, and then the two walked over to the
house.

Mrs. Follet was seated on the piazza with some light sewing when they
came up, and to Mr. Follet's excited introduction of Mr. Langly she
made polite but unrecognizing acknowledgment, and her husband was too
impatient to delay his revelation.

"Why, ma, you don't tell me you don't know Steve," he exclaimed.

"Steve," returned Mrs. Follet bewildered.

"Why, yes! little, old, scrawny, mountain Steve," exclaimed Mr.
Follet, "who did everything that was done here one summer!"

Then Mrs. Follet slowly grasped the astonishing thought that little
ignorant Steve and the fine-looking young man before her were one and
the same, and gave him gentle, motherly greeting.

"Where's Nancy?" went on Mr. Follet, impatiently.

"She's gone with Gyp for a gallop," returned Mrs. Follet, "but she
ought to be back any minute now." And by the time they had exchanged
brief accounts of the years that had passed since they last met, Nancy
was seen swaying gracefully down the road upon her pony's rounded
back. She