e delicate flowers, selecting
the shades carefully, and set forth. She was as guiltily conscious
as a lover that she was making an excuse to see Miss Lennox. She
hurried along in delight and trepidation, her great bouquet shedding
a penetrating fragrance around her, her face gleaming white out of
the dusk. She had to pass Granville Joy's house on her way, and saw
with some dismay, as she drew near, a figure leaning over the gate.

He pushed open the gate when she drew near, and stood waiting.

"Good-evening, Ellen," he said. He was mindful not to say "Hullo"
again. He bowed with a piteous imitation of Robert Lloyd, but Ellen
did not notice it.

"Good-evening," she returned, rather stiffly, then she added, in a
very gentle voice, to make amends, that it was a beautiful night.

The young man cast an appreciative glance at the crescent moon in
the jewel-like blue overhead, and at the soft shadows of the trees.

"Yes, beautiful," he replied, with a sort of gratitude, as if the
girl had praised him instead of the night.

"May I walk along with you?" he asked, falling into step with her.

"I am going to take these sweet-peas to Miss Lennox," said Ellen,
without replying directly.

She was in terror lest Granville should renew his appeal of a few
weeks before, and she was in terror of her own pity for him, and
also of that mysterious impulse and longing which sometimes seized
her to her own wonder and discomfiture. Sometimes, in thinking of
Granville Joy, and his avowal of love, and the touch of his hand on
hers, and his lips on hers, she felt, although she knew she did not
love him, a softening of her heart and a quickening of her pulse
which made her wonder as to her next movement, if it might be
something which she had not planned. And always, after thinking of
Granville, she thought of Robert Lloyd; some mysterious sequence
seemed to be established between the two in the girl's mind, though
she was not in love with either.

Ellen was just at that period almost helpless before the demands of
her own nature. No great stress in her life had occurred to awaken
her to a stanchness either of resistance or yielding. She was in the
full current of her own emotions, which, added to a goodly flood
inherited from the repressed passion of New England ancestors, had a
strong pull upon her feet. Sooner or later she would be given that
hard shake of life which precipitates and organizes in all strong
natures, but just now she