ety to know the result of her mother's interference. What
did she imagine had transpired between Mrs. McKinstry and himself? Had
she confidently expected her mother's prompt acceptance of the situation
and a reconciliation? Was that the reason why she had treated that
interruption as lightly as if she were already his recognized betrothed?
Had she even calculated upon it? had she--? He stopped, his cheek
glowing from irritation under the suspicion, and shame at the disloyalty
of entertaining it.

Opening his desk, he began to arrange his papers mechanically, when
he discovered, with a slight feeling of annoyance, that he had placed
Cressy's bouquet--now dried and withered--in the same pigeon-hole with
the mysterious letters with which he had so often communed in former
days. He at once separated them with a half bitter smile, yet after a
moment's hesitation, and with his old sense of attempting to revive a
forgotten association, he tried to re-peruse them. But they did not
even restrain his straying thoughts, nor prevent him from detecting a
singular occurrence. The nearly level sun was, after its old fashion,
already hanging the shadowed tassels of the pine boughs like a garland
on the wall. But the shadow seemed to have suddenly grown larger
and more compact, and he turned, with a quick consciousness of some
interposing figure at the pane. Nothing however was to be seen. Yet so
impressed had he been that he walked to the door and stepped from the
porch to discover the intruder. The clearing was deserted, there was a
slight rustling in the adjacent laurels, but no human being was visible.
Nevertheless the old feeling of security and isolation which had never
been quite the same since Mr. McKinstry's confession, seemed now to have
fled the sylvan school-house altogether, and he somewhat angrily closed
his desk, locked it, and determined to go home.

His way lay through the first belt of pines towards the mining-flat, but
to-day from some vague impulse he turned and followed the ridge. He had
not proceeded far when he perceived Rupert Filgee lounging before him
on the trail, and at a little distance further on his brother Johnny. At
the sight of these two favorite pupils Mr. Ford's heart smote him with
a consciousness that he had of late neglected them, possibly because
Rupert's lofty scorn of the "silly" sex was not as amusing to him as
formerly, and possibly because Johnny's curiosity had been at times
obtrusive. He h