she was about. Eloise was in good hands, and the
two water-soaked young men were about to leave when she said, "I guess
one of you will have to carry her to her chamber. I can't trust Tim,
he's such a blunderhead."

"No, no! Oh, no! I can walk somehow," Eloise said, starting to her feet,
and sinking back as quickly.

"Let me. I'll carry her!" Howard and Jack both exclaimed; but something
in Eloise's eyes gave the preference to Jack, who lifted her as easily
as if she had been a child, and carried her up the narrow stairs to the
room which at intervals had been occupied by one teacher after another
for nearly twenty years, for it was understood that Mrs. Biggs was to
board the teachers who had no home of their own in the district.

But never had so forlorn or wretched an one been there as poor Eloise.
The world certainly looked very dreary to her, and her lip quivered as
she said good-by to Jack, and tried to smile in reply to his assurance
that she would be better soon, and that he would call and see her on the
morrow. Then he was gone, and Eloise heard the footsteps and voices of
the three men as they left the house and hurried away. She was soon in
bed, and as comfortable as Mrs. Biggs could make her. That good lady was
a born nurse as well as a gossip, and as she arranged Eloise for what
there was left of the night, her tongue ran incessantly, first on her
own sprain,--every harrowing detail of which was gone over,--then on the
two young men, Howard Crompton and t'other one, who was he? She knew Mr.
Howard,--everybody did. He was Col. Crompton's nephew, and he ruled the
roost at the Crompton House, folks said, and would most likely be the
Colonel's heir, with Miss Amy, as folks called her now. Had Miss Smith
ever heard of her?

Eloise never had, and the pain in her ankle was so sharp that she gave
little heed to what Mrs. Biggs was saying. She did not know either of
the young men, she said. Both had been kind to her, and one, she
thought, was a stranger, who came in the train with her.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Biggs answered briskly. "I remember now. Cindy,--that's
Miss Stiles, the housekeeper at Crompton Place,--told me Mr. Howard was
to have company,--another high buck, I s'pose, though Howard don't do
nothin' worse than drive horses pretty fast, and smoke most all the
time. Drinks wine at dinner, they say, which I disbelieve in on account
of Tim, who never took nothin' stronger'n sweet cider through a straw."

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