y. "Supper's all ready, and you're going to walk right in."

"Oh, I really have to go," Victoria exclaimed.

"Now I know it ain't as grand as you'd get at home," said Mr. Jenney.
"It ain't what we'd give you, Miss Victoria,--that's only simple home
fare,--it's what you'd give us. It's the honour of having you," he
added,--and Victoria thought that no courtier could have worded an
invitation better. She would not be missed at Fairview. Her mother was
inaccessible at this hour, and the servants would think of her as dining
at Leith. The picture of the great, lonely house, of the ceremonious
dinner which awaited her single presence, gave her an irresistible
longing to sit down with these simple, kindly souls. Austen was the only
obstacle. He, too, had changed his clothes, and now appeared, smiling
at her behind Mrs. Jenney. The look of prospective disappointment in the
good woman's face decided Victoria.

"I'll stay, with pleasure," she said.

Mr. Jenney pronounced grace. Victoria sat across the table from Austen,
and several times the consciousness of his grave look upon her as she
talked heightened the colour in her cheek. He said but little during
the meal. Victoria heard how well Mrs. Jenney's oldest son was doing in
Springfield, and how the unmarried daughter was teaching, now, in the
West. Asked about Europe, that land of perpetual mystery to the native
American, the girl spoke so simply and vividly of some of the wonders
she had seen that she held the older people entranced long after
the meal was finished. But at length she observed, with a start, the
gathering darkness. In the momentary happiness of this experience, she
had been forgetful.

"I will drive home with you, if you'll allow me," said Austen.

"Oh, no, I really don't need an escort, Mr. Vane. I'm so used to driving
about at night, I never think of it," she answered.

"Of course he'll drive home with you, dear," said Mrs. Jenney. "And,
Jabe, you'll hitch up and go and fetch Austen back."

"Certain," Mr. Jenney agreed.

The rain had ceased, and the indistinct outline of the trees and fences
betrayed the fact that the clouds were already thinning under the moon.
Austen had lighted the side lamps of the runabout, revealing the shining
pools on the road as they drove along--for the first few minutes in
silence.

"It was very good of you to stay," he said; "you do not know how much
pleasure you have given them."

Her feminine appreciation responde