e that it was a
hard destiny to be the exceptional person in a community, to be
more gifted or more intelligent than the rest. For a girl it must
be doubly hard. He sat up suddenly and broke the long silence.

"I forgot, Enid, I have a secret to tell you. Over in the timber
claim the other day I started up a flock of quail. They must be
the only ones left in all this neighbourhood, and I doubt if they
ever come out of the timber. The bluegrass hasn't been mowed in
there for years,--not since I first went away to school, and maybe
they live on the grass seeds. In summer, of course, there are
mulberries."

Enid wondered whether the birds could have learned enough about
the world to stay hidden in the timber lot. Claude was sure they
had.

"Nobody ever goes near the place except Father; he stops there
sometimes. Maybe he has seen them and never said a word. It would
be just like him." He told them he had scattered shelled corn in
the grass, so that the birds would not be tempted to fly over
into Leonard Dawson's cornfield. "If Leonard saw them, he'd
likely take a shot at them."

"Why don't you ask him not to?" Enid suggested.

Claude laughed. "That would be asking a good deal. When a bunch
of quail rise out of a cornfield they're a mighty tempting sight,
if a man likes hunting. We'll have a picnic for you when you come
out next summer, Gladys. There are some pretty places over there
in the timber."

Gladys started up. "Why, it's night already! It's lovely here,
but you must get me home, Enid."

They found it dark inside. Claude took Enid down the ladder and
out to her car, and then went back for Gladys. She was sitting on
the floor at the top of the ladder. Giving her his hand he helped
her to rise.

"So you like my little house," he said gratefully.

"Yes. Oh, yes!" Her voice was full of feeling, but she did not
exert herself to say more. Claude descended in front of her to
keep her from slipping. She hung back while he led her through
confusing doorways and helped her over the piles of laths that
littered the floors. At the edge of the gaping cellar entrance
she stopped and leaned wearily on his arm for a moment. She did
not speak, but he understood that his new house made her sad;
that she, too, had come to the place where she must turn out of
the old path. He longed to whisper to her and beg her not to
marry his brother. He lingered and hesitated, fumbling in the
dark. She had his own cursed kind of sens