n her cheeks and her eyes flashed fire,
but she stood up straight and defiant, when another child might have
broken down and cried. Chilian Leverett always remembered the picture
she made--small, dark, and spirited.

"No," he exclaimed, "you need not go back." Then he rose and took her
hand that was cold and trembling. "You will not go back. Let us find
Miss Winn----"

"Chilian!" warned Elizabeth.

He led Cynthia from the room, up the stairs. Miss Winn sat there sewing.
She clasped her arms about him, he could fairly feel the throb in them.

"Oh," she cried with a strange sort of sweetness. "I love you. You are
so good to me, and I have told you just the truth."

Then she buried her face on Miss Winn's bosom.

Chilian went downstairs. He laughed, yet he was deeply touched by her
audacity and bravery.

"Elizabeth," he announced; "I will see Mrs. Wilby. Let the matter die
out, do not refer to it. I did not think it quite the school for her. We
will find something else."

"Chilian, I must make one effort for you and her. Going on this way will
be her ruin. I should insist upon her going back to school and
apologizing to Mrs. Wilby. I wouldn't let a chit like that order what a
household of grown people should do and make them bow down to her. You
will be sorry for it in the end. You have had no experience with
children, you have seen so few. And a man hasn't the judgment----"

His usually serene temper was getting ruffled, and with such characters
the end is often obstinacy.

"If she is to make a disturbance here, become a bone of contention with
us, I will send her away. Cousin Giles is taking a great interest in
her. There are good boarding-schools in Boston, or she and Miss Winn
could have a home together under his supervision. There is enough to
provide for them."

"And you would turn her over to that half-heathen woman!" in a horrified
tone. "Then I wash my hands of the matter. Send her to perdition, if you
will."

CHAPTER VII

CHANGEFUL LIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD

Elizabeth Leverett busied herself about the supper. She felt as one does
in the threatening of a thunderstorm, when the clouds roll up and the
rumbling is low and distant and one studies the sky with presentiments.
Then it comes nearer, flirts a little with the elements, breaks open and
shows the blue that the scurrying wind soon hides and the real storm
bursts. She had believed all along that it must come.

She was not an ungracious or