taying? He rose, hat in
hand.

Here, now, was the woman in a quandary. She had not anticipated such
abruptness.

"Don't go yet," she said, impetuously. "I want to talk with you. Tell
me all about the college, and yourself, and your plans. And---about
the tie--I wouldn't have made one for any one else. I remembered your
face. You know I was go often at your home, and I wondered how it
would suit you. You should take that interest as a compliment. And I
am lonesome here, and you are idling, you say, and why should we not be
good friends for the summer? The men in town annoy me, and the girls
here are not bright enough for you. Let us be cronies, will you not?
Take me fishing to-morrow. I want you to teach me how to catch bass in
the river. I heard some one say once you knew better than any one else
how that is done. Is not this a good idea of mine? It will help both
of us kill time."

She sat there on the sofa, half stretched out, yet not carelessly nor
ungracefully, but in an assumed laziness of real felinishness, a woman
just ten years older than the man she was addressing, yet in all the
lushness of magnificent womanhood, and emanating all magnetism.

Harlson said he would call for her and that they would go fishing. And
they went.

The light is tawny upon the lily-pods in shady places on the river.
And rods, such as are used for bass, are light upon the wrist, and, in
the lazy hours of mid-afternoon, when bass bite rarely, demand but
slight attention. And two people idling in a boat get very close in
thought together and come soon to know each other well. And a ruthless
young man of twenty and a tempestuous woman of thirty are as the
conventional tow and tinder.

And there were books she had never read in Mrs. Rolfston's library--for
she was not a woman of books--which interested Harlson, and it was
easier to read them there than take them home. And Mrs. Rolfston
waited upon him--how gifted is a woman of thirty--and he felt bands
upon him, and liked it, and would not reason to himself concerning it.

And one night, late, came a panting servant--Mrs. Rolfston had no men,
only two women domestics, with her in her home--to say that her
mistress had heard some one evidently attempting to open a window on
the piazza, and that they were all in fear of their lives, and that she
had fled out of the back way to ask Mr. Harlson the elder, or his son,
to come over at once and look around.

The fathe