e a matter for a child's understanding, but
thy mother and Madam Wetherill planned this. When my father protested,
this compromise, I think they call it, was decided upon."

Primrose was not much used to long words. Most of the Friends kept to
brief, concise Saxon.

"A compromise? Is that why I am changed about so? What queer names
things have! I like better living straight along. And I was much
frightened last winter. But there were two little girls in the next
place, and I should have been sorry enough to leave them, only they were
going to England to be educated."

Andrew remembered there was some talk of sending her to England, where
she had a half-brother, but that was not on the mother's side.

"Cannot something be done with this wicked compromise? I should like to
stay here. Andrew, I love you better than anyone in the wide world."

Andrew hugged her up close and gave a soft sigh. He could remember two
little girls sleeping in the Friends' burying ground. One would have
been seventeen now, and had stayed with them five years, dying the night
her sister was born. He had believed it was little Lois come in a new
baby body. And after three brief years she, too, had gone to the other
country. His mother had been graver ever since; more self-contained,
more spiritual, the Friends said.

This little girl, whom they had seen occasionally in her mother's life,
had crept into his heart during her six months' stay and he hated to let
her go. He was so fond of all young and helpless things. The lambs, the
tiny chickens, and the calves appealed to him strongly as they looked
out of asking eyes, it seemed to him. He was beginning to chafe under
the colorless, repressed life about him, and the little girl had been a
great outlet for his affection, though much of it had been nursed in
secret.

"I do not know what can be done, if anything," he said in answer to her
question. "But I am truly sorry. I love thee dearly, Primrose. I wish
thou wert my sister."

He bent over and kissed the soft, fragrant child lips. Oh, how sweet
they were! Was such tenderness reprehensible? He was beginning to think
of love and marriage as strong, heartsome youth will, but, strange to
say, the young woman his father approved of was not at all to his
liking. He was nearing man's estate, and though he labored with himself
to repress what he knew would be considered lawless desires, they
returned again and again. And how much he should long for