d
cross-banded, machine-stitched double skirt, sitting by her shady
window, beyond which, behind the garden angle, rose up the red brick
wall of the bakehouse, whence came a warm, sweet smell of many
new-drawn loaves,--looking around within, at the snug tidiness of
the simple room, and even out at the street close by, with its stir
and curious interest, yet seen from just as real a shelter as she
had in her own chamber at home,--that it might really be nice to be
a baker's daughter and live in the village,--"when it wasn't your
own fault, and you couldn't help it."

Ray nodded to some one out of her window.

Sylvie saw a bright color come up in her cheeks, and a sparkle into
her eyes as she did so, while a little smile, that she seemed to
think was all to herself, crept about her mouth and lingered at the
dimpled corners. There was an expression as if she hid herself quite
away in some consciousness of her own, from any recollection of the
strange girl sitting by.

The strange girl glanced from _her_ window, and saw a young
carpenter with his box of tools go past under the elm, with some
sort of light subsiding also in like manner from his face. He was in
his shirt sleeves,--but the sleeves were white,--and his straw hat
was pushed back from his forehead, about which brown curls lay damp
with heat. Sylvie did not believe he had even touched his hat, when
he had looked up through the friendly elm boughs and bowed to the
village girl in her shady corner. His hands were full, of course.
Such people's hands were almost always full. That was the reason
they did not learn such things. But how cute it had been of Ray
Ingraham _not_ to sit in the front window! He was certain to come
by, too, she supposed. To be sure; that was the street. Ray Ingraham
would not have cared to live up a long avenue, to wait for people to
come on purpose, in carriages.

She got as far as this in her thinkings, at the same moment that she
came to the bottom of her cup of tea. And then she caught a glimpse
of Rylocks, rolling the phaeton across from the smithy.

"What a funny time I have had! And how kind you have all been!" she
said, getting up. "I am ever so much obliged, Miss Ingraham. I
wonder"--and then, suddenly, she thought it might not be quite civil
to wonder.

Ray Ingraham laughed.

"So do I!" she said quickly, with a bright look. She knew well
enough what Sylvie stopped at.

Each of these two girls wondered if there would ever