izabeth had proposed it should be cut short on the neck for
the summer, but Miss Winn had objected.

"Such a great mop! No child wears it!"

Cynthia came in quietly and took her place. After her first cup of tea
Elizabeth thawed a little, enough to announce that two of the Appleton
children were ill, they thought with scarlet fever.

Chilian expressed some sympathy.

"And how was the school, Cynthia? We thought you might have been kept in
for some of your good deeds, as children are so seldom bad."

"I--I didn't like it," she answered simply.

"Children can't have just what they like in this world," was Elizabeth's
rejoinder.

"Nor grown people either," was Chilian's softening comment. Then he
changed the subject. He had seen Cousin Giles, who proposed to pay them
a visit, coming on some Saturday.

"Have you any lesson to learn?" he asked of Cynthia. "If so, bring your
book and come to my room."

"Oh, thank you!" Her face was radiant with delight.

Where had she left her book? Dame Wilby had told her to take it home and
study. Surely she had brought it--oh, yes! she had put it just inside
the gate under the great clump of ribbon grass. If only Cousin
Elizabeth's sharp eyes had not seen it. But there it was, safe enough.

She was delighted to go to Cousin Chilian's room, though she never
presumed. She seemed to have an innate sort of delicacy that he wondered
at.

The spelling was soon mastered. It was the rather unusual words that
puzzled her. Then they attacked the tables and he practised her in
making figures. Like most children left to themselves, she printed
instead of writing.

"Oh!" she cried with a wistful yet joyous emphasis, "I wish I could come
to school to you. And I'd like to be the only scholar."

"But you ought to be with little girls."

"I don't like them very much."

Then Miss Winn came for her. "You are very good to take so much
trouble," she said.

"Oh, I like you so much, so much!" she exclaimed with her sweet eyes as
well as her lips.

He recalled then the day on board the vessel, when she had besought in
her impetuous fashion that he should kiss her. She had never offered the
caress since. She was not an effusive child.

Her position at school was rather anomalous. A younger woman might have
managed differently. There was a new scholar that rather crowded them on
the bench. And the boy back of her did some sly things that annoyed her.
He gave her hair a twitch now and then.