afire by a
rival suitor just after she had paid off the mortgage by savin' out of
her week's wages! Do you suppose he will ever win her?"

"I shouldn't think it likely."

"No, you wouldn't, but the endin' of those stories is always what you
wouldn't expect. It's what makes 'em so interestin' and, as you say,
'different.'"

Roger did not answer. He merely yawned and tapped impatiently on the
table with his fingers.

[Sidenote: Nine o'Clock]

"What time is it?" she asked, adjusting her spectacles carefully upon
the ever-useful and unfailing wart.

"A little after nine."

"Sakes alive! It's time I was abed. I've got to get up early in the
mornin' and set my bread. Good-night."

"Good-night, Mother."

"Don't set up long. Oil is terrible high."

"All right, Mother."

Miss Mattie went upstairs and closed her door with a resounding bang.
Roger heard her strike a match on a bit of sandpaper tacked on the wall
near the match-safe, and close the green blinds that served the purpose
of the more modern window-shades. Soon, a deep, regular sound suggestive
of comfortable slumber echoed and re-echoed overhead. Then, and then
only, he dared to go out.

[Sidenote: A Light in the Window]

He sat on the narrow front porch for a few minutes, deeply breathing the
cool air and enjoying the beauty of the night. Across the way, the
little grey house seemed lonely and forlorn. The upper windows were
dark, but downstairs Barbara's lamp still shone.

"Sewing, probably," mused Roger. "Poor little thing."

As he watched, the lamp was put out. Then a white shadow moved painfully
toward the window, bent, and struck a match. Star-like, Barbara's
signal-light flamed out into the gloom, with its eager message.

"She wants me," he said to himself. The joy was inextricably mingled
with pain. "She wants me," he thought, "and I must not go."

"Why?" asked his heart, and his conscience replied, miserably,
"Because."

For ten or fifteen minutes he argued with himself, vainly. Every
objection that came forward was reasoned down by a trained mind, versed
in the intricacies of the law. The deprivations of the fathers need not
always descend unto the children. At last he went over, wondering
whether his father had not more than once, and at the same hour, taken
the same path.

[Sidenote: Two Hours of Life]

Barbara was out in the garden, dreaming. For the first time in years,
when she had work to do, she had laid it aside before eleve