“Oh, no, how could I be? There is always plenty for me to do, helping Aunt Janet about the house. I can do a great many things”--she glanced up at him with a pretty pride as her flying pencil traced the words. “I can cook and sew. Aunt Janet says I am a very good housekeeper, and she does not praise people very often or very much. And then, when I am not helping her, I have my dear, dear violin. That is all the company I want. But I like to read and hear of the big world so far away and the people who live there and the things that are done. It must be a very wonderful place.” “Wouldn’t you like to go out into it and see its wonders and meet those people yourself?” he asked, smiling at her. At once he saw that, in some way he could not understand, he had hurt her. She snatched her pencil and wrote, with such swiftness of motion and energy of expression that it almost seemed as if she had passionately exclaimed the words aloud, “No, no, no. I do not want to go anywhere away from home. I do not want ever to see strangers or have them see me. I could not bear it.” He thought that possibly the consciousness of her defect accounted for this. Yet she did not seem sensitive about her dumbness and made frequent casual references to it in her written remarks. Or perhaps it was the shadow on her birth. Yet she was so innocent that it seemed unlikely she could realize or understand the existence of such a shadow. Eric finally decided that it was merely the rather morbid shrinking of a sensitive child who had been brought up in an unwholesome and unnatural way. At last the lengthening shadows warned him that it was time to go. “You won’t forget to come to-morrow evening and play for me,” he said, rising reluctantly. She answered by a quick little shake of her sleek, dark head, and a smile that was eloquent. He watched her as she walked across the orchard, “With the moon’s beauty and the moon’s soft pace,” and along the wild cherry lane. At the corner of the firs she paused and waved her hand to him before turning it. When Eric reached home old Robert Williamson was having a lunch of bread and milk in the kitchen. He looked up, with a friendly grin, as Eric strode in, whistling. “Been having a walk, Master?” he queried. “Yes,” said Eric. Unconsciously and involuntarily he infused so much triumph into the simple monosyllable that even old Robert felt it. Mrs. Williamson, who was cutting bread at the end of the table, laid down her knife and loaf, and looked at the young man with a softly troubled expression in her eyes. She wondered if he had been back to the Connors orchard--and if he could have seen Kilmeny Gordon again. “You didn’t discover a gold mine, I s’pose?” said old Robert dryly. “You look as if you might have.” CHAPTER VIII. AT THE GATE OF EDEN