e added.

"But what a mite you were, to be in school!" he said wonderingly. "What
under heaven did you study?"

"I don't remember at all," she confessed. "But I suppose I spelled. Do
you remember the spelling-matches? And how you big ones wanted to 'leave
off head'?"

He chuckled. "I should say I did! And sometimes the greatest idiot would
'leave off head' because there wasn't any more time. It was maddening!"

He munched in silence for a while, and she did not dream of
interrupting.

"In the winter, though--George! but it was cold! We used to positively
swim through the drifts. I tell you, there aren't any such snows now!
How did you get there?"

"I only went in the summer," she said; "and I used to come in all
stained with the berries I ate along the way. It was dreadful"--she
grew stern, as if addressing the little girl in striped stockings and
pigtails--"the way I ate berries! I used to eat the bushes clean on the
way to school!"

She had got over her first shyness, and had gained time to realize her
big apron, which she hastily untied. He caught the motion and protested.

"No, no! Keep it on! I haven't seen a woman--a lady--in an apron for
years! Please keep it on! And do go on with the--the mess in the dish!"

"The mess"--she bent her brows reprovingly--"it's mayonnaise sauce. But
I don't think--"

He jumped up to put the bowl in her lap. A sudden twinge in his knee
wrung an involuntary groan from him. He walked a little stiffly toward
her.

"You have rheumatism! And you sat all the time on that damp grass!" she
cried reproachfully. "I thought at first it was the craziest thing to
do, but I didn't dare say so."

He ignored the charge but smiled at the confession.

"And now you're not afraid?"

She blushed again. It was very becoming.

"It seems--it seems foolish to act like strangers when it's been
so long--we remember so well--" She sighed a little. He studied her
face--so like her sister's and so utterly different. The same gray eyes,
but calm and drooped; the same clear white skin, but a fuller, yes, a
more matronly face, a riper, sweeter, more restful curve. The soft dark
shadows that accentuated Mrs. Dudley's eyes were lacking; a group of
tiny wrinkles at the corners gave her instead a pleasant, humorous
regard that her sister's literal directness missed utterly.

Nervous under his scrutiny, she rose hastily, and before he could
prevent her she had brought him a roomy arm-chair from the h