Mentally pronouncing her a very prudent, considerate girl, Mr. Howland walked on in silence, feeling the while that something had been taken from him. He had become greatly interested in the helpless old blind man, and in his writing-desk at home was a receipt in full for the first quarter’s rent, which would become due in a few days. But Mr. Howland was a man of stern integrity, hating anything like fraud and deceit, and if Mr. Warren had been guilty of either, he was not worthy of respect. Alice, too, though she might not have been in fault, did not seem quite the same, and now as he thought of her, there was less of beauty in the deep blue of her eyes and the wavy tresses of her hair. * * * * * “Will you go in? It is a long time since you were here,” said Adelaide, when at last they reached her mother’s door. Her invitation was accepted, and the clock struck nine before Mr. Howland rose to leave. Accompanying him to the door, Adelaide said, jingly: “I trust you will forget our conversation concerning those Warrens. You know I didn’t really tell you anything.” Mr. Howland bowed and walked away, wishing in his heart that she had _not_ told him anything, or at least had not created in his mind a suspicion against people he had hitherto liked so much. So absorbed was he in his meditations that he did not at first observe the slender figure which, wrapping its thin shawl close around it, came slowly toward him, but when the girl reached him and the cold wind blew the brown curls over her white face, he knew it was Alice Warren, and his first impulse was to offer her his arm and shield her from the storm. But Adelaide’s dark insinuations were ringing in his ears, and so Alice went on alone, while the rain and the sleet beat upon her head and the cold penetrated through her half worn shoes, chilling her weary feet, and sending a shiver through her frame. But she did not heed it, or even think of the driving storm, so eager was she to be at home, where she could count the contents of the little box and see if with the money received there was not enough to pay the quarter’s rent.