reticence had been established. The years in the school in Massachusetts
restored her health but did not break this habit. She came home and took
the place in the schools to earn money with which to take her back East,
dreaming of a position as instructor in an eastern college. She was that
rare thing, a woman scholar, loving scholarship for its own sake.

Mary Underwood's position in the town and in the schools was insecure. Out
of her silent, independent way of life had sprung a misunderstanding that,
at least once, had taken definite form and had come near driving her from
the town and schools. That she did not succumb to the storm of criticism
that for some weeks beat about her head was due to her habit of silence
and to a determination to get her own way in the face of everything.

It was a suggestion of scandal that had put the grey hairs upon her head.
The scandal had blown over before the time of her friendship for Sam, but
he had known of it. In those days he knew of everything that went on in
the town--his quick ears and eyes missed nothing. More than once he had
heard the men waiting to be shaved in Sawyer's barber shop speak of her.

The tale ran that she had been involved in an affair with a real estate
agent who had afterward left town. It was said that the man, a tall, fine-
looking fellow, had been in love with Mary and had wanted to desert his
wife and go away with her. One night he had driven to Mary's house in a
closed buggy and the two had driven into the country. They had sat for
hours in the covered buggy at the side of the road and talked, and people
driving past had seen them there talking together.

And then she had got out of the buggy and walked home alone through snow
drifts. The next day she was at school as usual. When told of it the
school superintendent, a puttering old fellow with vacant eyes, had shaken