she would be so happy if"--and then the letter trailed off into a wail of
disappointment and love.

Impatient and worried, Lois threw the pages into the fire, and had a
malicious satisfaction in watching the elaborate crest curl and blacken
on the red coals. "I wish he'd stay away," she said; "he bothers me to
death. I hate him! What a silly letter!"

It was so silly, she found herself smiling, in spite of her annoyance.
Now, to feel amusement at one's lover is almost as fatal as to be bored
by him. But poor Dick had no one to tell him this, and had poured out his
heart on paper, in spite of some difficulty in spelling, and could not
guess that he was laughed at for his pains.

Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth were rewarded for their walk into Ashurst by a
letter from Gifford, which made them quite forget Mr. Denner's looks, and
Mrs. Dale's bad taste in being a matchmaker.

He would be at home for one day the next week; business had called him
from Lockhaven, and on his way back he would stay a night in Ashurst.
The little ladies were flurried with happiness. Miss Deborah prepared
more dainties than even Gifford's healthy appetite could possibly
consume, and Miss Ruth hung her last painting of apple-blossoms in his
bedroom, and let her rose jar stand uncovered on his dressing-table for
two days before his arrival. When he came, they hovered about him with
small caresses and little chirps of affection, as though they would
express all the love of the months in which they had not seen him.

Gifford had thought he would go to the rectory in the evening, and
somehow the companionship of his aunts while there had not occupied his