ndclasp made Alora feel instantly that here
was a girl who would prove congenial under any circumstances. Really,
it would not take them long to become friends, and poor Alora had no
girl friends whatever.

She led them into a cool and comfortable living room and called to
Leona to fetch tea and biscuits.

"We are entirely shut in, here," she explained. "It seems to me worse
than a convent, for there I would see other girls while here I see no
one but the servants--and my father," as an afterthought, "year in and
year out."

"It's a pretty place," declared Mary Louise cheerfully.

"But it's an awfully dreary place, too, and sometimes I feel that I'd
like to run away--if I knew where to go," said Alora frankly.

"You have lived here three years?" asked Colonel Hathaway.

"Yes. We left New York more than four years ago and traveled a year in
different places, always stopping at the little towns, where there is
not much to interest one. Then my father found this place and rented
it, and here we've stayed--I can't say 'lived'--ever since. I get along
pretty well in the daytime, with my flowers and the chickens to tend,
but the evenings are horribly lonely. Sometimes I feel that I shall go
mad."

Mary Louise marked her wild look and excited manner and her heart went
out in sympathy to the lonely girl. Colonel Hathaway, too, intuitively
recognized Alora's plaint as a human cry for help, and did not need to
guess the explanation. The man in the vineyard had called her father
"the Student" and said he was a reserved man and never was seen without
a book in his hand. This would mean that he was not companionable and
Alora's protest plainly indicated that her father devoted small time,
if any, to the cultivation of his daughter's society.

"I suppose," remarked the old gentleman, "that Mr. Jones is so immersed
in his studies that he forgets his daughter lacks society am
amusement."

Mary Louise caught the slight, scornful smile that for a moment curled
Alora's lips. But the girl replied very seriously:

"My father dislikes society. I believe he would be quite content to
live in this little cooped-up place forever and see no one but the
servants, to whom he seldom speaks. Also, he ignores me, and I am glad
he does. But before my mother died," her voice breaking a little, "I
was greatly loved and petted, and I can't get used to the change. I
ought not to say this to strangers, I know, but I am very lonely and
unhappy,