ve done!" Hazel's eyes were flashing
fire now. The tears were scorched away.

"Sit down! We'll talk it over," said the man moving a great summer
chair nearer to his own. His eyes were on her face approvingly and he
was thinking what a beautiful picture she made in her anger.

"Never!" said the girl quickly. "It is not a thing I could talk over. I
do not wish to speak of it again. I wish you to leave this place at
once," and she turned with a quick movement and fled up the quaint old
staircase.

She stayed in her room until he left, utterly refusing to see him,
refusing to answer the long letters he wrote and sent up to her; and
finally, after another day, he went away. But he wrote to her several
times, and came again twice, each time endeavouring to surprise her into
talking with him. The girl grew to watch nervously every approach of the
daily stage which brought stray travellers from the station four miles
distant, and was actually glad when a heavy snow-storm shut them in and
made it unlikely that her unwelcome visitor would venture again into the
country.

The last time he came Hazel saw him descending from the coach, and
without a word to any one, although it was almost supper time, and the
early winter twilight was upon them, she seized her fur cloak and
slipped down the back stairs, out through the shadows, across the road,
where she surprised good Amelia Ellen by flinging her arms about her
neck and bursting into tears right in the dark front hall, for the gust
of wintry wind from the open door blew the candle out, and Amelia Ellen
stood astonished and bewildered for a moment in the blast of the north
wind with the soft arms of the excited girl in her furry wrappings
clinging about her unaccustomed shoulders.

Amelia Ellen had never had many beautiful things in her life, the care
of her Dresden-china mistress, and her brilliant garden of flowers,
having been the crowning of her life hitherto. This beautiful city girl
with her exquisite garments and her face like a flower, flung upon her
in sudden appeal, drew out all the latent love and pity and sympathy of
which Amelia Ellen had a larger store than most, hidden under a simple
and severe exterior.

"Fer the land's sake! Whatever ails you!" she exclaimed when she could
speak for astonishment, and to her own surprise her arm enclosed the
sobbing girl in a warm embrace while with the other hand she reached to
close the door. "Come right in to my kitchen and