terday. I want a drink of
water."

Sharley resigned herself in despair to her fate. Moppet lay broad and
bright awake till half past eight. The voices by the door grew silent.
Steps sounded on the walk. The gate shut.

"That child has kept me up with him the whole evening long," said
Sharley, coming sullenly down. "You didn't even come and speak to him,
mother. I suppose Halcombe Dike never asked for me?"

"Halcombe Dike! Law! that wasn't Halcombe Dike. It was Deacon Snow,--the
old Deacon,--come in to talk over the revival. Halcombe Dike was at
meeting, your father says, with his cousin Sue. Great interest up his
way, the Deacon says. There's ten had convictions since Conference
night. I wish you were one of the interested, Sharley."

But Sharley had fled. Fled away into the windy, moonless night, down
through the garden, out into the sloping field. She ran back and forth
through the grass with great leaps, like a wounded thing. All her worry
and waiting and disappointment, and he had not come! All the thrill and
hope of her happy Sunday over and gone, and he had not come! All the
winter to live without one look at him,--and he knew it, and he would
not come!

"I don't care!" sobbed Sharley, like a defiant child, but threw up her
hands with the worlds and wailed. It frightened her to hear the sound of
her own voice--such a pitiful, shrill voice--in the lonely place. She
broke into her great leaps again, and so ran up and down the slope, and
felt the wind in her face. It drank her breath away from her after a
while; it was a keen, chilly wind. She sat down on a stone in the middle
of the field, and it came over her that it was a cold, dark place to be
in alone; and just then she heard her father calling her from the yard.
So she stood up very slowly and walked back.

"You'll catch your death!" fretted her mother, "running round bareheaded
in all this damp. You know how much trouble you are when you are sick,
too, and I think you ought to have more consideration for me, with all
my care. Going to bed? Be sure and not forget to put the baby's gingham
apron in the wash."

Sharley lighted her kerosene lamp without reply. It was the little
kerosene with the crack in the handle. Some vague notion that everything
in the world had cracked came to her as she crept upstairs. She put her
lamp out as soon as she was in her room, and locked her door hard. She
sat down on the side of the bed and crossed her hands, and waited f