“Oh, my dear!” he breathed to himself, in an agony of love and self-restraint. But she did not hear the breath. She was engaged in a struggle of her own, and she seemed to remember that Hester-girl, and know her duty. She must not let him see how she felt, not for anything in the world. He was kind and tender. He had always been. He had denied himself and come here to stay with them in their need because of his gratitude toward her father for all he had done for him; and he had breathed that “dear” as he would have done to any little child of the tenement whom he found in trouble. Oh, she understood, even while she let the word comfort her lonely heart. Why, oh why had she been left to trifle with a handsome scoundrel? Why hadn’t she been worthy to have won the love of a great man like this one? These thoughts rushed through her brain so rapidly that they were not formulated at all. Not until hours afterward did she know they had been thought; but afterwards she sorted them out and put them in array before her troubled heart. A minute she struggled with her tears, and then in a sweet little voice, like a tired, naughty child she broke out: “Oh, Michael, you’ve been so good to me—to us, I mean—staying here all these weeks and not showing a bit of impatience when you had all that great work in the world to do—and I’ve just been thinking how perfectly horrid I was to you last winter—the things I said and wrote to you—and how I treated you when you were trying to save me from an awful fate! I’m so ashamed, and so thankful! It all came over me tonight what I owed you, and I can’t ever thank you. Can you forgive me for the horrid way I acted, and for passing you on the street that Sunday without speaking to you—I’m so ashamed! Will you forgive me?” She put out her little hands with a pathetic motion toward him in the half light of the room, and he took them in both his great warm ones and held them in his firm grasp, his whole frame thrilling with her sweet touch. “Forgive you, little Starr!” he breathed—“I never blamed you—” And there is no telling what might not have happened if the doctor had not just then unexpectedly arrived to perfect the arrangements for their going to the farm. When Michael returned from letting the doctor out, Starr had fled upstairs to her room; when they met the next morning it was with the bustle of preparation upon them; and each cast shy smiling glances toward the other. Starr knew that she was forgiven, but she also knew that there was a wall reared between them that had not been there before, and her heart ached with the knowledge. Nevertheless, it was a happy morning, and one could not be absolutely miserable in the company of Michael, with a father who was recovering rapidly, and the prospect of seeing him and going with him into the beautiful out-of-doors within a few hours.