Sunday—I wish you could see it!”

“I’d like to,” he replied, without realizing the step implied.

They were both dismayed by what had happened. Miss Selby arose hastily.“Well—good night!” she said, and fled upstairs to her room in a panic.

“Heavens!” she thought. “Did he think I wanted him to come with me tomorrow? Oh, dear! How—how awfully awkward! Oh, I do hope it will rain!”

Mr. Anderson, left by himself, lit his pipe.“After that,” he mused, “of course I’ll have to ask her to let me go with her tomorrow. That’s only common courtesy.”

Very well, he was willing to make the sacrifice.

                                  IIIt did not rain the next day. On the contrary, it was as bright and blithe a day as ever dawned. There was no plausible reason why a person who went into the woods almost every Sunday should not go today.

“It would be too rude, just to walk off, if he thinks I meant him to come along,” thought Miss Selby. “But perhaps he won’t say anything more about it.”

He did not appear in the dining room while she ate her breakfast.

“Probably he’s still asleep,” she thought, with that pardonable pride every one feels at being up before some one else.

He was not asleep. On the contrary, he was looking at her that very moment, as she sat down at her precious table, eating the Sunday morning coffee ring. He had breakfasted early on purpose, hoping that by so doing he would avoid her, for the more he meditated upon her behavior, the more sternly did he disapprove of it, and he had come downstairs this morning resolved to be merely polite.

He could not help sitting at her table; certainly he didn’t want to, and she had no right to treat him as if he were an annoying intruder. But, no matter what she did, he intended to be polite.

And, as he sat on the veranda railing and observed her through the window, he thought that perhaps it would not be so very difficult to be polite to her. She looked rather nice this morning, in her neat, dark dress, with the sun touching her brown hair to a warm brightness, and a sort of Sunday tranquillity about her. He felt a chivalrous readiness to take a walk in the woods with her; she might even point out all the flowers and tell him facts about them, 

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