her side, at once elevated and subdued by her gentle politeness and
condescension. When Lucina returned, and 'Liza followed with the
extra cups and plates, and the tea began, he accepted what was
proffered him, and ate and drank with manners as mild and grateful as
Lucina's. She could scarcely taste the full savor of her fruit-cake,
after all, so occupied she was in furtively watching this strange
boy. Her blue eyes were big with surprise. Why should he take Aunt
Camilla's cake, and even her bread-and-butter, when he would not
touch the gingerbread she had offered him, nor the money to buy
shoes? This young Lucina had yet to learn that the proud soul accepts
from courtesy what it will not take from love or pity.




Chapter VIII


That day had been one of those surprises of life which ever dwell
with one. Jerome in it had discovered not only a new self, but new
ways. He had struck paths at right angles to all he had followed
before. They might finally verge into the old again, but for that day
he saw strange prospects. Not the least strange of them was this
tea-drinking with the Squire and the Squire's sister and the Squire's
daughter in the arbor. He found it harder to reconcile that with his
past and himself than anything else. So bewildered was he, drinking
tea and eating cake, with the spread of Miss Camilla's lilac flounces
brushing his knee, and her soft voice now and then in his ear, that
he strove to remember how he happened to be there at all, and that
shock of strangeness which obliterates the past wellnigh paralyzed