eeling therein displayed, she found it
necessary to crush once or twice a wild hope that, her secret being
still unknown save to a friendly few, he might return and claim her.
Now, such an outcome would be impossible. He had become engaged to
another woman,--this in itself would be enough to keep him from her, if
it were not an index of a vastly more serious barrier, a proof that he
had never loved her. If he had loved her truly, he would never have
forgotten her in three short months,--three long months they had
heretofore seemed to her, for in them she had lived a lifetime of
experience. Another impassable barrier lay in the fact that his mother
had met her, and that she was known in the neighborhood. Thus cut off
from any hope that she might be anything to him, she had no wish to
meet her former lover; no possible good could come of such a meeting;
and yet her fluttering heart told her that if he should come, as his
letter foreshadowed that he might,--if he should come, the loving
George of old, with soft words and tender smiles and specious talk of
friendship--ah! then, her heart would break! She must not meet him--at
any cost she must avoid him.

But this heaping up of cares strained her endurance to the
breaking-point. Toward the middle of the last week, she knew that she
had almost reached the limit, and was haunted by a fear that she might
break down before the week was over. Now her really fine nature rose
to the emergency, though she mustered her forces with a great effort.
If she could keep Wain at his distance and avoid Tryon for three days
longer, her school labors would be ended and she might retire in peace
and honor.

"Miss Rena," said Plato to her on Tuesday, "ain't it 'bout time I wuz
gwine home wid you ag'in?"

"You may go with me to-morrow, Plato," answered the teacher.

After school Plato met an anxious eyed young man in the woods a short
distance from the schoolhouse.

"Well, Plato, what news?"

"I's gwine ter see her home ter-morrer, Mars Geo'ge."

"To-morrow!" replied Tryon; "how very fortunate! I wanted you to go to
town to-morrow to take an important message for me. I'm sorry,
Plato--you might have earned another dollar."

To lie is a disgraceful thing, and yet there are times when, to a
lover's mind, love dwarfs all ordinary laws. Plato scratched his head
disconsolately, but suddenly a bright thought struck him.

"Can't I go ter town fer you atter I've seed her home, Mars