lling, "Isabel, you tell me--" But father, who had Isabel's
masterful purpose, whipped up, and they were gone.

Isabel, still smiling, as if the sun itself could judge her and it was
desirable to keep up some appearance before it, went into the house and
closed the door behind her. She took off her hat and hung it on its
nail in the front hall. Then her muscles seemed to weaken in a strange
way, and she went into the darkened parlor where no neighbor would find
her, and sat down by the centre-table. She bowed her head upon the great
picture-Bible, and unmindful of the cross and anchor in perforated paper
below and the green wool mat with its glass beads, began to cry. Isabel
hated tears with a fiery scorn. She liked to stand on her two feet and
face the world as her father did; yet here she was, sobbing over the
centre-table and drawing quick breaths of misery. Even then, in the
passion of her grief, it did occur to her that in all the anger she had
felt toward Oliver in times past, she had never wanted to cry. Something
now had hurt a deeper heart than she knew she had.

She had got over the first tempest of her grief, and sat drying her eyes
with a wondering shame, and suddenly there was a sound of a horse driven
rapidly. Hope flooded her face with color. She sprang up and slipped to
the window and peered out at the side of the curtain. But it was not he.
It was Oliver, erect and handsome in his best clothes, and Ardelia
beside him. Oliver glanced up at the house as they went by; but he bent
to Ardelia again in a way that looked fondness and protection at once.
And Ardelia was openly in paradise. She was looking up to him with no
eyes for any face at the window, and as they whirled out of sight Isabel
saw her lift a hand and with an intimate, pretty motion brush something
from his coat. Then they were gone, and immediately the neighborhood
seemed to settle into a quiet. All the town was at Poole's Woods, and
Isabel was left behind.

For a long time, it seemed to her, she sat there, trying to still her
breath and school herself into her old serenity. Then, with her
handkerchief, a little wet ball, tight in one hand, she rose, went to
the glass that even in the darkened light showed her a miserable look,
made a little face at herself, and walked out into the kitchen. There
she stood idly for a moment, debating what she should do. Jim Bryant had
not lived long in the town, but she knew him well from these few weeks
of