ened and tried
to understand, and looked into Martha's face with eyes that were dark
and misty with tenderness.

And she slept that night and late into the next morning, without
stirring. And when she waked there was already a little flicker of color
in her pale face.

VII

"Well, Martha," said the Poor Boy, when he had kissed her and welcomed
her back, "did you find some one to help you?"

"She's a plain old thing," said Martha, "but honest and with good
references. Would ye care to see her for yourself?"

"Good God, no," said the Poor Boy. "As long as I live I don't want to
see any one but you. Tell her, will you? See that she understands. Tell
her--gently, so as not to hurt her feelings, but firmly, that she has
only to show herself to be dismissed. The day I see her--she goes."

"She'll not thank you," said old Martha. "Ye may safely leave that to
me."

"And if she isn't a real help to you, Martha, she goes. Another thing,
I'd rather she didn't talk very loud or sing, if she can help it. I
don't want to know that she's here."

To Martha's discerning and suspicious eyes the Poor Boy seemed nervous,
ill at ease, and eager to be off somewhere. He was dressed for deep
snow-going, and kept swinging his mittens by the wrists and beating them
together. He stood much on one foot and much on the other.

"What's vexing you?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said. "I've found something off here," he waved toward
the valley, "that amuses me--just a silly game, Martha, that goes on in
my head. The minute I get out of sight of the house it begins. It's done
it every day since you left."

"What kind of a game will that be?"

"It's just making believe," he said with a certain embarrassment,
"pretending things--and it makes me forget other things. I'll be back by
dark."

He literally bolted, and could be heard saying sharp things to the
straps of his skis, which had become stiffened with the cold.

Old Martha stood for a while staring at the door which he had closed
behind him. She wondered if by any possible chance his mind was
beginning to go. To relieve her own she hurried back to Joy in the
kitchen, and began a conversation that had not flagged by tea-time.

The Poor Boy had found a long diagonal by which he could descend from
the top of the cliff to the bottom in one swift silent slide. More than
half-way down there was a dangerous turn, but he had learned to ski at
St. Moritz when he was little, and never