it that something would happen, some day, it
frightened me, and yet I wished that something would happen. Only, I
never would have thought of--nitro-glycerine."

She was unaware of the added interest in his regard. But he answered
lightly enough:--"Oh, not only the foreigners. Human chemicals--you
can't play with human chemicals any more than you can play with real
ones--you've got to know something about chemistry."

This remark was beyond her depth.

"Who is playing with them?" she asked.

"Everybody--no one in particular. Nobody seems to know much about them,
yet," he replied, and seemed disinclined to pursue the subject. A robin
with a worm in its bill was hopping across the grass; he whistled softly,
the bird stopped, cocking its head and regarding them. Suddenly, in
conflict with her desire to remain indefinitely talking with this strange
man, Janet felt an intense impulse to leave. She could bear the
conversation no longer, she might burst into tears--such was the
extraordinary effect he had produced on her.

"I must go,--I'm ever so much obliged to you," she said.

"Drop in again," he said, as he took her trembling hand .... When she had
walked a little way she looked back over her shoulder to see him leaning
idly against the post, gazing after her, and waving his hammer in
friendly fashion.

For a while her feet fairly flew, and her heart beat tumultuously,
keeping time with her racing thoughts. She walked about the Common,
seeing nothing, paying no attention to the passers-by, who glanced at her
curiously. But at length as she grew calmer the needs of a youthful and
vigorous body became imperative, and realizing suddenly that she was
tired and hungry, sought and found the little restaurant in the village
below. She journeyed back to Hampton pondering what this man had said to
her; speculating, rather breathlessly, whether he had been impelled to
conversation by a natural kindness and courtesy, or whether he really had
discovered something in her worthy of addressing, as he implied.
Resentment burned in her breast, she became suddenly blinded by tears:
she might never see him again, and if only she were "educated" she might
know him, become his friend. Even in this desire she was not
conventional, and in the few moments of their contact he had developed
rather than transformed what she meant by "education." She thought of it
not as knowledge reeking of books and schools, but as the acquirement of
the f