The boarders had organized a fishing party, and everybody had gone, even Mr. Wylde, so it was very quiet at the farmhouse. Aunt Robbins and her servants were busy making preserves, and Uncle Robbins was in the meadow, hauling and stacking the wheat he had cut a few days before. Pansy had helped to peel apples for the preserves until her back ached and her hands smarted, so at last Aunt Robbins sent her out to rest. “I shan’t need you any more to-day, so you had better go and take a nap in the hammock before that stuck-up Jule Ives comes to turn you out of it,” said the good woman. Pansy went out, but she took off her calico dress and gingham apron first, and donned her prettiest dress, an organdie lawn with a white ground sprigged with blue flowers. A pretty bow of blue ribbon fastened the white lace at her throat, and another one tied back the mass of rippling dark hair from the white temples, leaving just a few bewitching love locks to curl over the white brow. Thus attired, she looked exquisitely fair, cool, and charming, and she knew well that when the boarders returned, tired and hot from the day’s amusements, they would envy her sweet, comfortable appearance. She was not disappointed, for by and by, when they came trooping through the big white gate close by her, every one stopped and stared, and Miss Ives exclaimed, in a loud, sarcastic voice: “Good gracious, is it Sunday?” “Why, no, of course not, Juliette,” said Chattie Norwood. “Why, what made you think of such a funny thing?” “Why, Pansy Laurens has on her Sunday dress, that’s all,” with a loud laugh. “Oh, pshaw! Her other one is in the washtub,” tittered Miss Norwood, and every word came distinctly to Pansy’s ears. An angry impulse prompted her to make some scathing reply, but an innate delicacy restrained her, and she would not lift her beautiful, drooping lashes from the book she pretended to be reading, although the angry color deepened to crimson on her cheeks. The tittering party passed on toward the house, but, although Pansy did not look up, she was conscious that one had lingered and stopped. It was Norman Wylde, and he came up to the hammock, and said gently: “Poor little Pansy!” Her sweet lips quivered, and she looked up, meeting the tender, sympathetic gaze of his splendid dark eyes. “You are a brave little girl,” he continued warmly. “I was glad that you proved yourself too much of a lady to reply to their coarse sneers. Your sweet dignity makes me love you all the more.” Pansy gave a little start of surprise and rapture. Did he indeed love her? The color flamed up brightly on her delicate cheeks, and the lashes drooped bashfully over her eyes. “Look at me, Pansy,” said the young man, in a tone made up of tender command and fond entreaty. “You are not surprised. You guessed that I loved you, didn’t you?” “No. I was afraid that--that you loved Miss Ives,” she faltered, and a frown darkened his handsome face.