by somebody. This one's
'most too little."

Tillie smiled as she took it from him. "Thank you, Absalom. I don't
care if it's LITTLE, so long as it's interesting--and instructive," she
spoke primly.

"The Bible's such a big book, I thought the bigger the book was, the
nearer it was like the Bible," said Absalom.

"But there's the dictionary, Absalom. It's as big as the Bible."

"Don't the size make nothin'?" Absalom asked.

Tillie shook her head, still smiling. She glanced down and read aloud
the title of the book she held: "'What a Young Husband Ought to Know.'"

"But, Absalom!" she faltered.

"Well? What?"

She looked up into his heavy, blank face, and suddenly a faint sense of
humor seemed born in her--and she laughed.

The laugh illumined her face, and it was too much for Absalom. He
seized her and kissed her, with resounding emphasis, squarely on the
mouth.

Instantly Tillie wrenched herself away from him and stood up. Her face
was flushed and her eyes sparkled. And yet, she was not indignant with
him in the sense that a less unsophisticated girl would have been.
Absalom, according to New Canaan standards, was not exceeding his
rights under the circumstances. But an instinct, subtle, undefined,
incomprehensible to herself, contradicted, indeed, by every convention
of the neighborhood in which she had been reared, made Tillie feel that
in yielding her lips to this man for whom she did not care, and whom,
if she could hold out against him, she did not intend to marry, she was
desecrating her womanhood. Vague and obscure as her feeling was, it was
strong enough to control her.

"I meant what I said, Absalom. If you won't leave me be, I won't stay
here with you. You'll have to go home, for now I'm going right
up-stairs."

She spoke with a firmness that made the dull youth suddenly realize a
thing of which he had never dreamed, that however slightly Tillie
resembled her father in other respects, she did have a bit of his
determination.

She took a step toward the stairs, but Absalom seized her skirts and
pulled her back. "You needn't think I'm leavin' you act like that to
me, Tillie!" he muttered, his ardor whetted by the difficulties of his
courting. "Now I'll learn you!" and holding her slight form in his
burly grasp he kissed her again and again.

"Leave me go!" she cried. "I'll call out if you don't! Stop it,
Absalom!"

Absalom laughed aloud, his eyes glittering as he felt her womanly
helplessn