ughts; and as she
mounted the steps she was surprised to see Dr. Wyant detach himself from
the group and advance to meet her.

"May I post your letter?" he asked, lifting his hat.

His gesture uncovered the close-curling hair of a small
delicately-finished head just saved from effeminacy by the vigorous jut
of heavy eye-brows meeting above full grey eyes. The eyes again, at
first sight, might have struck one as too expressive, or as expressing
things too purely decorative for the purposes of a young country doctor
with a growing practice; but this estimate was corrected by an
unexpected abruptness in their owner's voice and manner. Perhaps the
final impression produced on a close observer by Dr. Stephen Wyant would
have been that the contradictory qualities of which he was compounded
had not yet been brought into equilibrium by the hand of time.

Justine, in reply to his question, had drawn back a step, slipping her
letter into the breast of her jacket.

"That is hardly worth while, since it was addressed to you," she
answered with a slight smile as she turned to descend the post-office
steps.

Wyant, still carrying his hat, and walking with quick uneven steps,
followed her in silence till they had passed beyond earshot of the
loiterers on the threshold; then, in the shade of the maple boughs, he
pulled up and faced her.

"You've written to say that I may come tomorrow?"

Justine hesitated. "Yes," she said at length.

"Good God! You give royally!" he broke out, pushing his hand with a
nervous gesture through the thin dark curls on his forehead.

Justine laughed, with a trace of nervousness in her own tone. "And you
talk--well, imperially! Aren't you afraid to bankrupt the language?"

"What do you mean?" he said, staring.

"What do _you_ mean? I have merely said that I would see you
tomorrow----"

"Well," he retorted, "that's enough for my happiness!"

She sounded her light laugh again. "I'm glad to know you're so easily
pleased."

"I'm not! But you couldn't have done a cruel thing without a struggle;
and since you're ready to give me my answer tomorrow, I know it can't
be a cruel one."

They had begun to walk onward as they talked, but at this she halted.
"Please don't take that tone. I dislike sentimentality!" she exclaimed,
with a tinge of imperiousness that was a surprise to her own ears.

It was not the first time in the course of her friendship with Stephen
Wyant that she had been startled by t