ny carpenter sold his boxes. Like
himself, Claude Locker's poems were always short, always in request, and
sometimes not easy to understand.

The poem he wrote that night was a word-picture of the rising moon
entangled in a sheaf of corn upon a hilltop, with a long-eared rabbit
sitting near by as if astonished at the conflagration.

"A very interesting girl, that Miss Asher," said Mr. Fox to his wife
that evening. "I do not know when I have laughed so much."

"I thought you were finding her interesting," said Mrs. Fox. "To me it
was like watching a game of roulette at Monte Carlo. It was intensely
interesting, but I could not imagine it as having anything to do with
me."

"No, my dear," said Mr. Fox, "it could have nothing to do with you."

After Mrs. Easterfield retired she sat for a long time, thinking of
Olive. That young person and Mr. Locker had been boating that afternoon,
and Olive had had the oars. Mr. Locker had told with great effect how
she had pulled to get out of the smooth water, and how she had dashed
over the rapids and between the rocks in such a way as to make his heart
stand still.

"I should like to go rowing with her every day," he had remarked
confidentially. "Each time I started I should make a new will."

"Why a new one?" Mrs. Easterfield had asked.

"Each time I should take something more from my relatives to give to
her," had been the answer.

As she sat and thought, Mrs. Easterfield began to be a little
frightened. She was a brave woman, but it is the truly brave who know
when they should be frightened, and she felt her responsibility, not on
account of the niece of the toll-gate keeper, but on account of the
daughter of Lieutenant Asher, whom she had once known so well. The thing
which frightened her was the possibility that before anybody would be
likely to think of such a thing Olive might marry Claude Locker. He was
always ready to do anything he wanted to do at any time; and for all
Mrs. Easterfield knew, the girl might be of the same sort.

But Mrs. Easterfield rose to the occasion. She looked upon Olive as a
wild young colt who had broken out of her paddock, but she remembered
that she herself had a record for speed. "If there is to be any running
I shall get ahead of her," she said to herself, "and I will turn her
back. I think I can trust myself for that."

Olive slept the sound sleep of the young, but for all that she had a
dream. She dreamed of a kind, good, thoughtful,