ast Pronando appeared; he was to enter
college--a Western college on one of the lower lakes--early in the
spring, and that prospect made the chaplain's lessons seem dull to him.
"Very likely they will not teach at all as he does; I shall do much
better if I go over the text-books by myself," he said, confidentially,
to Anne. "I do not want to appear old-fashioned, you know."

"Is it unpleasant to be old-fashioned? I should think the old fashions
would be sure to be the good ones," said the girl. "But I do not want
you to go so far beyond me, Rast; we have always been even until now.
Will you think _me_ old-fashioned too when you come back?"

"Oh no; you will always be Anne. I can predict you exactly at twenty,
and even thirty: there is no doubt about _you_."

"But shall I be old-fashioned?"

"Well, perhaps; but we don't mind it in women. All the goddesses were
old-fashioned, especially Diana. _You_ are Diana."

"Diana, a huntress. She loved Endymion, who was always asleep," said
Anne, quoting from her school-girl mythology.

This morning Rast had dropped in to read a little Greek with his old
master, and to walk home with Anne. The girl hurried through her
_Hamlet_, and then yielded the place to him. It was a three-legged
stool, the only companion the arm-chair had, and it was the seat for the
reciting scholar; the one who was studying sat in a niche on the
window-seat at a little distance. Anne, retreating to this niche, began
to rebraid her hair.

"But she, within--within--singing with enchanting tone, enchanting
voice, wove with a--with a golden shuttle the sparkling web," read Rast,
looking up and dreamily watching the brown strands taking their place in
the long braid. Anne saw his look, and hurried her weaving. The girl had
thought all her life that her hair was ugly because it was so heavy, and
neither black nor gold in hue; and Rast, following her opinion, had
thought so too: she had told him it was, many a time. It was
characteristic of her nature that while as a child she had admired her
companion's spirited, handsome face and curling golden locks, she had
never feared lest he might not return her affection because she happened
to be ugly; she drew no comparisons. But she had often discussed the
subject of beauty with him. "I should like to be beautiful," she said;
"like that girl at the fort last summer."

"Pooh! it doesn't make much difference," answered Rast, magnanimously.
"I shall always like you