With a shame-faced look the boy's hand sought his pocket, but Satan whispered, 'She may be mad to-morrow,' and he crept away. 'What are you teasing Pauline about?' asked Stephen, as he went upstairs. 'Ain't doin' nuthin',' was the sullen reply. 'Yes, you are. She don't hev sorrowful looks in her eyes unless you're cuttin' up worse than common. You've just got to leave off sudden, or I'll give you something you won't ever forgit.' 'Ain't goin' ter be bossed by nobody,' said the boy doggedly, as he reached his room. 'Was goin' ter give her the old letter to-morrow, anyway, but now I don't care if she never gits it,' and opening the chest which held his few treasures, he deliberately shut up the letter in an old tin box, and went to bed. * * * * * 'Father is gettin' so mortal queer,' said Stephen discontentedly. 'First he tells me to top-dress the upper lot, and then right off he wants me to harness up and go to the mill. I don't see how a feller's to know what to do. Most wish I'd gone West with Leander, it's a free life there, and he's his own master.' '"One is our Master, even Christ,"' Pauline quoted softly. 'Don't go, Stephen, you and Lemuel are the only ones on the farm now, and father is getting old.' She spoke sadly. She had noticed with a sinking heart how 'queer' her father was. The years had slipped by until Polly was seventeen. A very frail little body she was, but always so patient and sweet, that Pauline never grudged the constant care. Two of the boys had taken the shaping of their own lives and gone away, and Susan Ann had a home of her own with two little freckled-faced children to call her mother. 'We'll jog along together, Stephen,' she said in her bright, cheery way. 'Father forgets now and then, but he doesn't mean any harm, and it's only one day at a time, you know.' Stephen looked at her admiringly. 'You're a brick, Pawliney, and I guess if you can stand it, I ought to be able to, with you round making the sunshine. I'd be a brute to go and leave you and Lem with it all on your shoulders'; and the honest, good-hearted fellow went in to give Polly a kiss before he started for the mill. Clearing out an old trunk next day Pauline came across a soiled, tumbled envelope. It was the letter which Lemuel had tucked away and forgotten while he waited for her to 'get mad.' She opened it eagerly. It was from Richard Everidge. 'I should like to come down and see you,' he wrote, 'in Sleepy Hollow, that is, if you care to have me, and it is quite convenient. Do not trouble to write unless you want me. If I do not get an answer I shall know you do not care.' Richard Everidge had been married for three years now, and had a little girl. She clasped her hands with one quick cry of pain. What must he have thought of her all these years? Her friend, who had always been so kind! so kind!