and be pardoned.

She stepped down to the platform, and Betty's arms were about her. After
a double embrace she gently disengaged herself, turned to Leonard, gave
him her hand, and said, with a smile which was delightfully frank and
cordial: "I will not wait for Betty's introduction, Mr. Rambo. She
has talked to me so much of her brother Harry, that I quite know you
already."

Leonard could neither withdraw his eyes nor his hand. It was like a
double burst of warmth and sunshine, in which his breast seemed to
expand, his stature to grow, and his whole nature to throb with some new
and wonderful force. A faint color came into Miss Bartram's cheeks, as
they stood thus, for a moment, face to face. She seemed to be waiting
for him to speak, but of this he never thought; had any words come to
his mind, his tongue could not have uttered them.

"It is not Harry," Betty explained, striving to hide her embarrassment.
"This is Leonard Clare, who lives with us."

"Then I do not know you so well as I thought," Miss Bartram said to him;
"it is the beginning of a new acquaintance, after all."

"There isn't no harm done," Leonard answered, and instantly feeling the
awkwardness of the words, blushed so painfully that Miss Bartram felt
the inadequacy of her social tact to relieve so manifest a case of
distress. But she did, instinctively, what was really best: she gave
Leonard the check for her trunk, divided her satchels with Betty, and
walked to the carriage.

He did not sing, as he drove homewards down the valley. Seated on the
trunk, in front, he quietly governed the horses, while the two girls, on
the seat behind him, talked constantly and gaily. Only the rich, steady
tones of Miss Bartram's voice WOULD make their way into his ears, and
every light, careless sentence printed itself upon his memory. They came
to him as if from some inaccessible planet. Poor fellow! he was not the
first to feel "the desire of the moth for the star."

When they reached the Rambo farm-house, it was necessary that he should
give his hand to help her down from the clumsy carriage. He held it but
a moment; yet in that moment a gentle pulse throbbed upon his hard palm,
and he mechanically set his teeth, to keep down the impulse which made
him wild to hold it there forever. "Thank you, Mr. Clare!" said
Miss Bartram, and passed into the house. When he followed presently,
shouldering her trunk into the upper best-room, and kneeling upon the
floor to