is a nice
fellow, and comes of a good family. We have all noticed that he has no
eyes for any other girl but you, and never had. They say he fell in love
with you when you wore short dresses."

When Liddy went home that night she held a communion with herself. So
everybody believed it, did they? And she, in spite of her invariable
reticence, was being gossiped about, was she? "I've a good mind never
to set foot in the academy again," she said to herself.

For a solitary hour she was miserable, and then the reaction came. She
began to think it all over, and all the years she had known him from his
boyhood passed in review. And in all those years there was not one
unsightly fact, or one hour, or one word she could wish were blotted
out. And they said he had loved her from the days of short dresses!
Well, what if he had? It was no disgrace. Then pride came in and she
began to feel thankful he had, and as the recollection of it all came
crowding into her thoughts and surging through her heart, she arose and
looked into her mirror. She saw the reflection of a sweet face with
flushing cheeks, red lips, bright eyes, and--was it possible! a faint
glistening of moisture on her eyelashes!

"Pshaw," she said to herself as she turned away, "I believe I am losing
my senses."

The next two days at school she barely nodded to him each day. "At least
he shall not see it," she thought.

When the next Sunday eve came she dressed herself with unusual care, and
as it was a cold night she piled the parlor fireplace full of wood and
started it early.

Then she sat down to wait. The time of his usual coming passed, but
there was no knock at the door. The hall clock with slow and solemn tick
marked one hour of waiting, and still he did not come. She arose and
added fuel to the fire, and then, taking a book, tried to read. It was
of no use, she could not fix her mind upon anything, and she laid the
book down and, crossing the room, looked out of the window. How
cheerless the snowclad dooryard, and what a cold glitter the stars
seemed to have! She sat down again and watched the fire. The tall clock
just outside the parlor door seemed to say: "Never--never--never!"

She arose and shut the door, for every one of those slow and solemn
beats was like a blow upon her aching heart. Then she seated herself
again by the dying fire, and as she gazed at the fading embers a little
realization of what woman's love and woman's waiting means came to