he room.

The little group at the door--Aurora, Don and the old minister, now was
increased in the entry way by the addition of none less than the tall
and awkward figure of Horace Brooks, who came forward, smiling
uncertainly as the other three finally emerged from the door. Aurora,
quickly divining his purpose, made some hesitating excuse, and darted
back into the hall, where now Miss Julia had well accomplished the
purpose of extinguishing the lights. But what Aurora saw caused her to
withdraw softly, and not to speak to Miss Julia at all that evening!

One by one the switches had cut off the side lights, the desk lights,
those of the ceiling. Two lights remained burning at the back of the
little platform where the speakers had sat, one electrolier on each side
of the portrait over which still hung the draped flag of the Union--the
portrait of the Honorable William Henderson, lawyer, judge, politician
and leading citizen.

Before this portrait stood Julia Delafield, her smooth-topped stick
resting on the little table against which she supported herself now. She
stood, both her hands clasped at her bosom. She was looking up directly
at the lighted features of this portrait, and on her face was so rapt a
look, her gaze was so much that of one adoring a being of another
world--so much ardor was in her face, pale as it was--that Aurora Lane,
seeing and knowing much, all with a sudden wrench of her own heart,
withdrew silently, thankful that Miss Julia had not known.

"Miss Julia's tired," said she to her companions, who still stood
waiting at the entry way. "We'll not disturb her tonight, Don, after
all. I know she wants to see you. You can imagine she has a thousand
things to talk about--books, pictures, everything. But tonight we'll
just go on home. We'll come again tomorrow."

The people of Spring Valley scattered this way and that from the
classical front of the Carnegie Library. They passed away in long
streams in each direction on the street, which, arched across in places
by the wide branches of the soft maples, lay half lighted by the moon,
and yet more by the flickering arc light sputtering at the top of its
mast at the corner of the public square, which made the shadows sheer
black. So close did the trees stand to the street that the summer wind
could not get through them to lighten the pall of the night's
sultriness.

In Spring Valley the climate in the summer time was at times so
balefully hot that com