me nervousness and unusual shyness when she
recited her lessons. Today, moreover, she had not appeared at all. Late
that afternoon he called at the Skinner home to find the reason.

Daddy Skinner occupied his customary seat on the bench in front of the
shack, watching with listless, dull eyes the restless waves. He greeted
the professor with his twisted smile, as the latter called to him from
the lane.

"Where's Tessibel?" asked Young, after they had remarked upon the
weather and the health of themselves and their friends.

"Well, I don't know just where she air gone," replied Orn, "but seems to
me's if she went off toward the rocks. Shall I call her, eh?"

"No, no! I'll go look for her," answered the professor.

He found her sitting pensively on the rocks, her hand resting on the
head of Kennedy's brindle bulldog, and in the moment he stood there
gazing at the girl, he felt unaccountably saddened.

When Tess became conscious of his presence, she gave him a shadowy,
fleeting smile, which vanished almost before it had fully appeared. Her
eyes were heavy and dim with unshed tears, and she was as pale as the
mist clouds that drifted slowly across the sky and away over the eastern
hills. Perhaps it was the melancholy of that smile appealing to his deep
love that made Professor Young hurry toward her, holding out his hands.

Pete greeted him with a welcoming whine, wagging his whole body, in
default of the tail he had lost.

"Your father said you were here, child," Young said in a low voice. "May
I sit down?"

Tess acquiesced by a nod of her head, and he settled himself comfortably
on the rock. Crouching down on the other side of her, Pete put his head
in the girl's lap. Her hands rested upon his broad back, while the man
played with him, pulling and poking his heavy jowls and hanging lips,
and the dog uttered delighted growls at the attention.

"I'm afraid my little girl hasn't been quite well of late," Young began
presently.

The red-brown eyes fell and a flushed, lovely face bent beneath a shower
of bronze curls.

"Has she?" he queried again, with tender sympathy.

Lower and lower bent the auburn head until the man could no longer see
the troubled face.

"I knew there was something wrong with my little pupil," said he softly.
"Now tell me about it."

"I can't," whispered Tessibel. "I ain't able."

Oh, if she only could! At that moment it seemed that all of her
troubles would take wing if this thoughtfu