This question of the purchase of a new press, before the old press had been paid for, was a very serious and anxious one. "I wish father could help," Alice said--they were walking home from Wednesday-evening lecture, loitering in the moonlight, and wishing the way were twice as long. "Oh, I wouldn't think of such a thing," the young man declared; "we'll pull out somehow. He's gone off to the woods, hasn't he?" "Yes, he went this morning; he's so pleased to get away! He won't be back till the Academy opens." "I suppose he hates to leave you, though," Lute said. "Yes, but I can see that the getting away is a great relief. I keep his pictures dusted, and take the flowers up to the cemetery for him; so he knows things are not neglected." "But," Luther said, thoughtfully, "I think she's sorry to have him go?" "Oh yes; sorry, I suppose," Alice admitted. "She's fond of him--in her way." "Then why--" Luther began. "My dear, she's _jealous_ of my mother." "Oh, Alice!" "Well, you know," Alice explained, "my mother was so beautiful--and poor Mrs. Gray! But I must say, Lute, she's the justest person I know. She's always told me that my mother was perfect. And of course she was; but when you're jealous, it isn't so easy to acknowledge things like that." "But I don't see how you can be jealous of the dead," Luther ruminated. "Oh, _I_ do! I could be jealous of some girl who was dead, if you'd loved her, Lute." And then the boy put his arm round her, and they kissed each other there in the shadows of the locust-trees overhanging a garden wall. "I'm so glad there isn't anybody, dead or alive," Alice said, happily; "though I'd rather have her alive than dead. If she were alive, you'd have quarrelled with her, and stopped loving her. But if she were dead, she would keep on being perfect. Yes; I'd rather marry a man who had been--been _divorced_," said Alice, lowering her voice, because the word was hardly considered proper in Old Chester, "than a man whose wife was dead, because he would always be thinking what an angel she was and what a sinner I was." "He would think you were an angel," the boy told her, blushing at his own fervency. But the fervency died on his ardent young lips when they got into the house and sat decorously in the parlor with Mrs. Gray. Rebecca was sewing, her hard, square face a little harder than usual. Mr. Gray had gone away on that annual fishing-trip--gone, with a look of relief growing in his eyes even as he stepped into the stage and pulled the door to behind him; pulled it hurriedly, as though he feared she would follow. Then, baring his head politely, he had looked out of the window and said: "Good-bye. You will send for me should you, by any chance, need me. I trust you will be very well."