was wrong."

"Well, you'll know better from now on," said Mary Virginia,
comfortingly. She looked at him searchingly for a minute, and he met
her look without flinching. That had been the one hopeful sign, from
the first--that he never refused to meet your glance, but gave you
back one just as steady, if more suspicious.

"Mr. Flint," said Mary Virginia, "you've about made up your mind to
stay on here with the Padre, haven't you? For a good long while, at
any rate? You wouldn't like to leave the Padre, would you?"

He stiffened. One could see the struggle within him.

"Well, miss, I can't see but that I've just got to stay on--for
awhile. Until he's tired of me and my ways, anyhow," he said gloomily.

Mary Virginia dismissed my tiredness with an airy wave of her hand.
She smiled.

"Do you know," said she earnestly, "I've had the funniest idea about
you, from the very first time I saw you? Well, I have. I've somehow
got the notion that you and the Padre _belong_. I think that's why you
came. I think you belong right here, in that darling little house,
studying butterflies and mounting them so beautifully they look alive.
I think you're never going to go away anywhere any more, but that
you're going to stay right here as long as you live!"

His face turned an ugly white, and his mouth fell open. He looked at
Mary Virginia almost with horror--Saul might have looked thus at the
Witch of Endor when she summoned the shade of Samuel to tell him that
the kingdom had been rent from his hand and his fate was upon him.

Mary Virginia nodded, thoughtfully.

"I feel so sure of it," said she, confidently, "that I'm going to ask
you to do me a favor. I want you to take care of Kerry for me. You
know I'm going away to school next week, and--he can't stay at home
when I'm not there. My father's away frequently, and he couldn't take
Kerry about with him, of course. And he couldn't be left with the
servants--somehow he doesn't like the colored people. He always growls
at them, and they're afraid of him. And my mother dislikes dogs
intensely--she's afraid of them, except those horrible little
toy-things that aren't _dogs_ any more." The scorn of the real
dog-lover was in her voice. "Kerry's used to the Parish House. He
loves the Padre, he'll soon love you, and he likes to play with
Pitache, so Madame wouldn't mind his being here. And--I'd be more
satisfied in my mind if he were with somebody that--that needed
him--and would like