weet eyes and consideration, at a
moment's notice, if at all? As well expect the star to note a new eye
of admiration upon the earth.

In all probability, Lucina's heart had turned already to Lawrence
Prescott, as was fitting. She had doubtless seen much of him--he was
handsome and prosperous; both families would be pleased with such a
match. Jerome faced firmly the jealousy in his heart. "You've got to
get used to it," he told himself.

He did not think much of his sister in this connection, but simply
decided that his mother, and possibly Elmira, had overrated Lawrence
Prescott's attention, and jumped too hastily at conclusions. It was
incredible that any one should fancy his sister in preference to
Lucina. Lawrence had merely called in a friendly way. He did not once
imagine any such feeling on Elmira's part for young Prescott, as on
his for Lucina, and had at the time more impatience than pity.
However, he resolved to remonstrate if Lawrence should stay so late
again with his sister.

"She may think he means more than he does, girls are so silly," he
said. He did not class Lucina Merritt among girls.

That Sunday night, after dark, though he was resolved not to visit
Lucina, he strolled up the road, past her house. There was no light
in the parlor. "She doesn't expect me, after all," he thought, but
with a great pang of disappointment rather than relief. He judged
such proceedings from the rustic standpoint. Always in Upham, when a
girl expected a young man to come to spend an evening with her, she
lighted the best parlor and entertained him there in isolation from
the rest of her family. He did not know how different a training in
such respects Lucina had had. She never thought, since he was not her
avowed lover, of sequestering herself with him in the best parlor.
She would have been too proudly and modestly fearful as to what he
might think of her, and she of herself, and her parents of them both.
She expected, as a matter of course, to invite him into the
sitting-room, where were her father and mother and Colonel Jack
Lamson.

However, she permitted herself a little innocent manoeuvre, whereby
she might gain a few minutes of special converse with him without the
presence of her elders. A little before dusk Lucina seated herself on
the front door-step. Her mother brought presently a little shawl and
feared lest she take cold, but Lucina said she should not remain
there long, and there was no wind and no da