er--"Tillie, I would
rather see you dead at my feet than to see your soul tied to that clod
of earth!"

A wild thrill of rapture shot through Tillie's heart at his words. For
an instant she looked up at him, her soul shining in her eyes. "Does
he--does HE--care that much what happens to me?" throbbed in her brain.

For the first time Fairchilds fully realized, with shame at his blind
selfishness, the danger and the cruelty of his intimate friendship with
this little Mennonite maid. For her it could but end in a heartbreak;
for him--"I have been a cad, a despicable cad!" he told himself in
bitter self-reproach. "If I had only known! But now it's too
late--unless--" In his mind he rapidly went over the simple history of
their friendship as they walked along; and, busy with her own thought,
Tillie did not notice his abstraction.

"Tillie," he said suddenly. "Next Saturday there is an examination of
applicants for certificates at East Donegal. You must take that
examination. You are perfectly well prepared to pass it."

"Oh, do you really, REALLY think I am?" the girl cried breathlessly.

"I know it. The only question is, How are you going to get off to
attend the examination?"

"Father will be at the Lancaster market on Saturday morning!"

"Then I'll hire a buggy, come out to the farm, and carry you off!"

"No--oh, no, you must not do that. Father would be so angry with you!"

"You can't walk to Bast Donegal. It's six miles away."

"Let me think.--Uncle Abe would do anything I asked him--but he
wouldn't have time to leave the hotel Saturday morning. And I couldn't
make him or Aunty Em understand that I was educated enough to take the
examination. But there's the Doc!"

"Of course!" cried Fairchilds. "The Doc isn't afraid of the whole
county! Shall I tell him you'll go if he'll come for you?"

"Yes!"

"Good! I'll undertake to promise for him that he'll be there!"

"When father comes home from market and finds me gone!" Tillie
said--but there was exultation, rather than fear, in her voice.

"When you show him your certificate, won't that appease him? When he
realizes how much more you can earn by teaching than by working for
your aunt, especially as he bore none of the expense of giving you your
education? It was your own hard labor, and none of his money, that did
it! And now I suppose he'll get all the profit of it!" Fairchilds could
not quite keep down the rising indignation in his voice.

"No," said Ti