wers, when you was gittin' over the
lung fever?"

She nodded.

"Susan," said he desperately, "what if I should ask you to forgit old
scores an' begin all over?"

"I ain't laid up anything," answered Susan, looking him full in the face
with her brilliant smile.

"There's suthin' I've wanted to tell ye, this two year. I never s'posed
you knew, but that night I kissed your sister in the entry an' asked
her, I thought 'twas you."

"Yes, I knew that well enough. I was in the buttery and heard it all.
There, le's not talk about it."

Solon came a step nearer.

"But will you, Susan?" he persisted. "Will you? I know Jenny'd like it."

"I guess she would, too," said Susan. "There! we don't need to talk no
further! You come over to breakfast, won't you? I'm goin' to fry
chicken. It's Christmas mornin'." She nodded at him and went out,
walking perhaps more proudly than usual down the shining path. Solon,
regardless of his cooling kitchen, stood at the door and watched her.
Solon never said very much, but he felt as if life were beginning all
over again, just as he had wished to make it at the very start. He
forgot his gray hair and furrowed face, just as he forgot the cold and
snow. It was the spring of the year.

When Miss Susan entered her kitchen, the schoolmaster had come down and
was putting a stick of wood into the stove.

"Merry Christmas!" he called, "and here's something for you."

A long white package lay on the table at the end where her plate was
always set. She opened it with delicate touches, it seemed so precious.

"My sake!" said she. "It's a fan!" She lifted it out, and the fragrance
of an Eastern wood filled all the room. She swept open the feathers.
They were white and wonderful.

"It was never used except by one very beautiful woman," said the
schoolmaster, without looking at her. "She was a good deal older than I;
but somehow she seemed to belong to me. She died, and I thought I should
like to have you keep this."

Susan was waving it back and forth before her face, stirring the air to
fragrance. Her eyes were full of dreams. "My! ain't it rich!" she
murmured. "The Queen o' Sheba never had no better. An' Solon's comin'
over to breakfast."

A SECOND MARRIAGE

Amelia Porter sat by her great open fireplace, where the round,
consequential black kettle hung from the crane, and breathed out a
steamy cloud to be at once licked up and absorbed by the heat from a
snatching flame below. It