traces on Jake Conklin's bench of unusual agitation and excitement. To these signs the schoolmaster paid small heed at the moment. He was absorbed in thinking of the evening before, and in trying to appraise each of Loo's words and looks. At last the time came for breaking up. When he went outside to get into the buggy—he had brought Jack with him—he noticed, without paying much attention to it, that Jake Conklin was not there to unhitch the strap and in various other ways to give proof of a desire to ride with him. He set off for Richards' mill, whither, needless to say, Jake and half-a-dozen other urchins had preceded him as fast as       their legs could carry them.     

       As soon as he was by himself the schoolmaster recognized that the affair was known to his scholars, and the knowledge nettled him. His anger fastened upon Loo. It was all her fault; her determination to “pay Stevens out” had occasioned the quarrel. Well, he would fight and win, and then have done with the girl whose lips had doubtless been given to Stevens as often and as readily as to himself. The thought put him in a rage, while the idea of meeting Stevens on an equality humiliated him—strife with such a boor was in itself a degradation. And Loo had brought it       about. He could never forgive her. The whole affair was disgraceful, and her words, “Every girl expects to be kissed when she goes out with a man,”        were vulgar and coarse! With which conclusion in his mind he turned to the right round the section-line, and saw the mill before him.     

       After the return from the house-warming, and the understanding, as she considered it, with Bancroft, Miss Loo gave herself up to her new-born happiness. As she lay in bed her first thought was of her lover: he was       “splendid,” whereby she meant pleasant and attractive. She wondered remorsefully how she had taken him to be quite “homely-looking” when she first saw him. Why, he was altogether above any one she knew—not perhaps jest in looks, but in knowledge and in manners—he didn't stand in the corner of the room like the rest and stare till all the girls became uncomfortable. What did looks matter after all? Besides, he wasn't homely, he was handsome; so he was. His eyes were lovely—she had always liked dark eyes best—and his moustache was dark, too, and she liked that. To be sure it wasn't very long yet, or thick, but it would grow; and here she sighed with content. Most girls in her place would be sorry he wasn't taller, but she didn't 

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