When Frances drove from the station, for the first time in all her healthy young life she found herself dreading the day which stretched before her. She tied Starlight outside the quadrangle and walked up the corridor slowly. Every window of her house was opened wide. Susan, beturbanned, met her at the door.

"Honey," she said, "don't yuh want to go in yo' room dis damp day an' res' yo'self?"

Frances gave a little shiver at the idea of being shut in her room all the morning. Her expression was answer sufficient.

"Den yuh bettah dribe in town an' git sumpin' to eat; we's cleaned clar out."

"What do you want?" asked Frances, glad of the errand.

"Want! Yuh jes' step in hyar one minute." The old woman pointed with [Pg 210]dramatic hand towards the empty shelves, and began a list of all the eatables she could think of.

"We needs 'em fur shuah!" she ended. "Ise gwine begin my Christmas cake termorrer; Ise jes' been waiting to git de place clar, an' I tell yuh fer a fac' I wants dis house all to myself dis one mornin'. Ise tiahed o' dried-up flowers an' empty boxes an'—an'—sich! Honey," she wheedled, "if yuh gits through early, yuh might go visitin'."

Frances was laughing at Susan's earnestness, when she went out again. There was nothing in the day, though the mist dripped from shrub and tree and bespangled the grass and veiled the mountains, to foster heartache. The streets were filled with carriages, mud-splashed and encrusted, the horses red with clay above their fetlocks. The stores were bright with holly and cedar. Before the grocers' shops were coops of turkeys and strings of hams and barrels of oysters. The confectioners' windows were piled high with oranges and dates and nuts and raisins and candies. The dry-goods[Pg 211] windows showed alluring furs and coats and breadths of cloth. Waiting at the curb was a string of carriages, their occupants calling gay greetings from one to another. Frances pulling close into the press felt herself one of the Christmas crowd. A shopper stopped at her wheel for a word or two; the busy clerk, when he at last found time for her order, had a ready jest: there was store after store to be visited. Frances felt the cheer of the blessed commonplaces. She was as bright as any of the crowd. Her cheeks were reddened with the soft damp air, her hair curled rebelliously about her forehead under the brim of her big hat.

It was long past noon when she turned homeward. She went slowly. The crush of carriage and cart, of farm wagons loaded with cedar and holly, and ox-carts piled with cord-wood, demanded careful driving. She was nearly out of the shopping district when she heard her father call her.

"I thought you were at home," she called back.

"And I thought you were there."

[Pg 212]

"You can drive up with me." She pulled as close to the curb as she could.

"I don't know; Edward is in here," pointing to the store before which he stood.

"What have you been doing?" The professor flushed with a guilty knowledge of the Greek cameo in his pocket.

"Oh, I have been helping him select some Christmas presents. He's going home, you know, for the holidays. Here he is now. Can't you go out with us?" asked the professor, soon as the young man had greeted Frances.

"I am afraid I ought not."

"I'll drive you up by the stables," suggested Frances.

"I wish you would. Have you time to see my new horse?" he asked, as Frances drove slowly and skilfully along the crowded street.

"I didn't know you had a new horse."

"No? I have been intending to ride her in when you could see her, but you have had so little time—"

"But I have time now," said the young woman, enthusiastically, as she stopped [Pg 213]before the stables. "Can't we go in and see her?" to her father.

"Certainly."

The young man put his mare through her paces up and down the stable aisle. "I want you to ride her some time," he declared, as Frances waxed eloquent over the horse's slender head and liquid eyes and shapely legs.

"When can you bring her in? She's a beauty! I'd like to ride her now."

"Shall I put your saddle on?" questioned Mr. Carver, who stood with the group admiring the animal.

"I am afraid Mr. Montague has not time," faltered Frances.

Edward had one fleeting vision of the work awaiting him, then he put it out of his mind. "Certainly," he said, "if you will allow me to reconsider. I will go out with you, and Mr. Carver can send the horse to the house."

"Oh!" said Frances, softly.

"You had better go with her," declared the professor, who was never quite sure of his daughter when it was a question of horses. "Can't you ride Starlight?"

[Pg 214]

Montague's eyes were questioning Frances' face; he saw the quick look of pleasure, as she cried, "I shall be delighted."

They went up the long street together. As they crossed the high bridge above the railroad, there was to each of the young people a quick unwelcome memory. Frances recalled a young man's debonair manner as he made his adieux that morning, and Edward had a swift remembrance of the still, frosty morning when he stood there, unconscious, and watched the glittering coaches slipping away, Frances in one of them; and he thought of all the tangle since.

Frances had wondered with secret amusement what Susan would say to the guest. The old darkey was the soul of affability. The house was in its regular, quiet order, and was spotless. She waited on the table, brisk good humor in every movement. The boy was out of sight.

Soon as the dinner was over she asked "Marse Robert" to step into the kitchen. "I done discharged dat boy," she announced briefly.

[Pg 215]

"Why, Susan, what was the matter?" the professor asked carelessly.

"I got no need o' him nohow, an' Ise tiahed o' his sass, an' Ise tiahed o' seeing so many folks aroun'."

The professor secretly agreed with her.

"He wants his money," went on the old darkey, shamefacedly. "He 'low as how he's comin' back dis ebenin'."

"All right. How much is it?"

Susan named a sum, and the professor handed it to her, and hurried on into the library. He had had no such opportunity for days for a talk with Montague, but he found that young man so inattentive a listener that he was not sorry when Frances pulled aside the portière and called that she was ready and the horse was there.

Frosts and rains had made the roads rough, but here and there by wayside path or sandy stretch, the mare showed her gait, swift and smooth. It was a beautiful world through which they rode, the mists closing about them shutting in the distant peaks and clinging to the bare fields' breast and [Pg 216]condensing in jewelled drops on fence and bush and dried brown grasses; and the exhilaration of movement, the comfort of thoughtful, watchful companionship which roused no hateful mood, cheered the young girl to forgetfulness of all else.

But there was the next day for remembrance, when the rain shut her in, and the storm lashed along the mountains and beat across the quadrangle; and the next, when the clouds held sullen guard over the hill-tops. Three days had gone by, and Lawson had not returned. It was the evening of that third day that, sitting in her old chair before the library fire, while her father was reading absorbedly not far away, Frances heard the bell ring sharply. She did not know that every nerve in her was tense as she heard the voice in the hall when Susan opened the door.

"Mr. Lawson," said Susan, coming into the room; "he walked straight on into ............