,
and unhappy that her rest had terminated unpleasantly, yet so very,
very homesick that she seemed driven on to the station,--if to reach
it were a possibility.

Fortunately for her, when she had reached the last half she was
overtaken by a man driving an empty wood-cart, who stopped and asked
her if she "didn't want a lift?" From what this saved her, no one
could ever know.

In the mean time, Aunt Betty, with her eyes dimmed--but she did not
know it was by tears--had watched her through a slit in a green paper
window-shade.

Until she left the door, she did not believe she could do so foolish a
thing as to attempt the walk to the station on such a morning; but
when she saw her step off so courageously down the narrow foot-path,
she began to have misgivings.

Notwithstanding her tears, the sight seemed to harden instead of
soften her heart. "If the gal will go, go she will," she said aloud,
with some unforgiving wags of her head. "She's stuck full of obstinacy
as her father was afore her." And by this time Marion was hidden from
her sight by the deep snow-banks, and she turned from the window into
her lonely kitchen with a heavy heart.

Marion, safely back in the academy, had, like Aunt Betty, her own
troubled thoughts.

She found only Helen there among the scholars, and every teacher away
but Miss Ashton, who evidently had not expected her back so soon.

Regular school duties did not begin until Tuesday of the next week,
and now it was only Wednesday night. She might have remained in Belden
a day or two longer, and then left with her aunt's approval.

What kind of a return had she made to her aunt for her kindness?

Marion's room, that she had thought of with so much longing as she sat
in the farm kitchen, had lost its charm. She was very willing to
believe it was because her room-mates were not there, and the fast
falling darkness prevented her from seeing from her window the winter
view, which even the grand old mountains that she had left behind her
did not make her value less.

Self-deception was not one of Marion's faults; she grew so quickly
regretful for what had happened, that when Miss Ashton came to her
door, troubled by the girl's tired look on her arrival, she found her
with red eyes and a swollen face.

"Tell me all about it," she said, taking no notice of her tears, but
turning up the gas to make the room more cheerful.

"What has gone wrong? Wasn't your aunt glad to see you? Are you sick