"Ach, Katy!" cried he. "We are only too glad to have you. You know how I wanted to take you when you were a little baby, and Aunt Sally wanted you. This is your home forever, Katy. But you always talked so of school and education!" "I do not care for education." Uncle Edwin's head shook with the activity of the mental processes within it. "What!" he exclaimed, incredulously. Then he took a fresh start. Katy's ill-temper was incomprehensible, but when she heard what his plans were, she would be cross no longer. "You have two hundred dollars in the bank, Katy. The two hundred that the governor sent you a while back, haven't you, Katy?" He did not ask the question for information, but to establish the points of his simple discourse. "Well," said Katy, faintly, from her agitation. "That is a good start. Now the squire will help and I will help. We have this all arranged between us. Then, when you come of age you will get the money your gran'mom left you. But that you are not to touch for your education. That you will leave by me, because I am your guardian in the law. You were faithful to your gran'mom till the end, and you are not to spend your own money for education. The squire and I will look after that." The muscles of Katy's face had stiffened and utterance was impossible. All the old, dear, eager hope filled her heart. But Alvin was still precious to her; her sacrifice had been made for him; the sacrifice whose extent she was just beginning to understand. This, however, was no time to think of Alvin. She forced herself to say again quietly that she was not going to school. "Not--going--to--school!" cried Uncle Edwin with long pauses between his words. "No," repeated Katy. "I am not going to school." Then Katy sought her room and her bed. When Uncle Edwin reported his interview with Katy to the squire, the squire laughed. "Ach, she just talks that way! She is a little contrary, like all the women when they are tired or not so well. Of course she is going! She was in here not long ago talking about it and I gave her some money for books and other things." The next day the squire himself spoke to Katy. "Are you getting ready for school, Katy?" "I am not going to school." "Since when have you changed your mind?" "This long time." The squire turned and looked at Katy over his glasses. "Why, it is only a little while since I gave you money for books!" "You didn't give me money," corrected Katy, stammering. "It was a loan; I said it was a loan. Else I wouldn't have taken it." "Humbug, Katy!" If the squire had been Katy's guardian, she would have gone promptly to school. But Uncle Edwin held that office and he could not have brought himself to compel Katy to do anything. The squire argued and coaxed and cajoled and Katy looked at him with a white face and stubborn eyes.