could pay yet, and she would accept no
charity. Gradually an undemonstrative friendship sprang up between the
pale old gray-haired teacher and the dark young black-haired girl.
Delicately, too, but gradually, the companionship of Bles and Zora was
guided and regulated. Of mornings Zora would hurry through her lessons
and get excused to fly to the swamp, to work and dream alone. At noon
Bles would run down, and they would linger until he must hurry back to
dinner. After school he would go again, working while she was busy in
Miss Smith's office, and returning later, would linger awhile to tell
Zora of his day while she busied herself with her little tasks. Saturday
mornings they would go to the swamp and work together, and sometimes
Miss Smith, stealing away from curious eyes, would come and sit and talk
with them as they toiled.

In those days, for these two souls, earth came very near to heaven.
Both were in the midst of that mighty change from youth to womanhood and
manhood. Their manner toward each other by degrees grew shyer and more
thoughtful. There was less of comradeship, but the little meant more.
The rough good fellowship was silently put aside; they no longer lightly
clasped hands; and each at times wondered, in painful
self-consciousness, if the other cared.

Then began, too, that long and subtle change wherein a soul, until now
unmindful of its wrappings, comes suddenly to consciousness of body and
clothes; when it gropes and tries to adjust one with the other, and
through them to give to the inner deeper self, finer and fuller
expression. One saw it easily, almost suddenly, in Alwyn's Sunday suit,
vivid neckties, and awkward fads.

Slower, subtler, but more striking was the change in Zora, as she began
to earn bits of pin money in the office and to learn to sew. Dresses
hung straighter; belts served a better purpose; stockings were smoother;
underwear was daintier. Then her hair--that great dark mass of immovable
infinitely curled hair--began to be subdued and twisted and combed
until, with steady pains and study, it lay in thick twisted braids about
her velvet forehead, like some shadowed halo. All this came much more
slowly and spasmodically than one tells it. Few noticed the change much;
none noticed all; and yet there came a night--a student's social--when
with a certain suddenness the whole school, teachers and pupils,
realized the newness of the girl, and even Bles was startled.

He had bought h