ambition lashing him on.

During that winter the stolen books from the Far Hill Place caused
Priscilla much wonderment and some little embarrassment. She had to keep
them secret owing to her father's sentiment, and, for some reason, she
did not confide in Farwell. This new and unexpected interest in her life
was so foreign to anything with which the master had to do that she felt
no inclination to share it.

"But I cannot understand," she often said to Jerry-Jo. "I'd like to write
to him. Do you think you could find out for me where he is? That he
should even remember me! I would not have him think me so ungrateful as
I must seem."

She and Jerry-Jo were in the path leading to Lonely Farm from Kenmore as
she spoke, and suddenly something the young fellow said brought her to a
sharp standstill.

"Oh! I suppose, after your cutting up in the woods that day he wants to
make you remember him."

This was an outburst that Jerry-Jo permitted himself without forethought.
He was using Travers as an old tribeman might have used torture, to test
his own bravery and endurance, but the effect upon Priscilla was so
startling and unexpected that he fell back bewildered.

"In--the--the--woods?" she gasped.

"Sure. That time your father drove you home."

For a full moment Priscilla stared helplessly, then she began to see
light.

"Do you mean," she gasped, "that he who made me dance--was the boy of the
Hill Place?"

"As if you did not know it!" Jerry-Jo grunted.

"But Jerry-Jo you said he--that boy was a poor, twisted thing, ugly past
all belief, while he who played and laughed that day was like an angel of
light just showing me the way to heaven!"

And now Jerry-Jo's dark face was not pleasant to look upon.

"Can't a twisted thing become straight?" he muttered; "can't a devil trap
himself out like an--an angel?"

"Oh! Jerry-Jo, he who played for me in the woods could never have been
evil. Why, all his life he had been making himself into something big
and fine. He put into words the things I had always thought and dreamed
about--an ideal was what he called it! And to think I never knew! And he
remembered and wanted to be kind! I shall worship him now while I live.
And when he comes back to the Hill Place I will go and thank him, even
if my father should kill me. I shall never be happy until I can explain.
What a stupid he must think me!"

After that the secret became the sacredest thing in Priscilla's life and
the mo