ave the satisfaction," he said, "of receiving the only
first-grade certificate issued to-day. You might teach a higher grade
of pupils than you will find at Sandy Run, but let us hope that you may
in time raise them to your own level."

"Which I doubt very much," he muttered to himself, as she went away
with Wain. "What a pity that such a woman should be a nigger! If she
were anything to me, though, I should hate to trust her anywhere near
that saddle-colored scoundrel. He's a thoroughly bad lot, and will
bear watching."

Rena, however, was serenely ignorant of any danger from the
accommodating Wain. Absorbed in her own thoughts and plans, she had
not sought to look beneath the surface of his somewhat overdone
politeness. In a few days she began her work as teacher, and sought to
forget in the service of others the dull sorrow that still gnawed at
her heart.

XXVI

THE SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE WOODS

Blanche Leary, closely observant of Tryon's moods, marked a decided
change in his manner after his return from his trip to Patesville. His
former moroseness had given way to a certain defiant lightness, broken
now and then by an involuntary sigh, but maintained so well, on the
whole, that his mother detected no lapses whatever. The change was
characterized by another feature agreeable to both the women: Tryon
showed decidedly more interest than ever before in Miss Leary's
society. Within a week he asked her several times to play a selection
on the piano, displaying, as she noticed, a decided preference for gay
and cheerful music, and several times suggesting a change when she
chose pieces of a sentimental cast. More than once, during the second
week after his return, he went out riding with her; she was a graceful
horsewoman, perfectly at home in the saddle, and appearing to advantage
in a riding-habit. She was aware that Tryon watched her now and then,
with an eye rather critical than indulgent.

"He is comparing me with some other girl," she surmised. "I seem to
stand the test very well. I wonder who the other is, and what was the
trouble?"

Miss Leary exerted all her powers to interest and amuse the man she had
set out to win, and who seemed nearer than ever before. Tryon, to his
pleased surprise, discovered in her mind depths that he had never
suspected. She displayed a singular affinity for the tastes that were
his--he could not, of course, know how carefully she had studied them.
The old wound, rec