"That’s odd!" Norval puffed slowly and Donelle’s eyes pleaded unconsciously. For no real reason she did not want Jo to know she had been with Tom. She was haunted by the look! "Why don’t you come up to my cabin and play to me?" This in a tone so low that Mam’selle could not hear. "I—I don’t know. I might be in the way while you work." "On the contrary. Come up to-morrow, Donelle, I’ll paint you with your fiddle. You’ll make the town stare, the town back home." The colour rose to Donelle’s face. She remembered Tom’s words. "I do not want strangers staring at my face," she said with some spirit. "Why not? It’s a pretty face, Donelle." Then the girl crossed the room and stood before him. "If you talk and look like that," she warned in an undertone, "I’ll make Mamsey send you away." Norval laughed. "I don’t believe you will," he said, and reached out toward her. And, for hours that night, after everything was still, Donelle lay in her dark room and cried while she struggled with her confused emotions. "He shall go away! He shall _not_ dare to look at me so, and whisper!" Then she tossed about. "But he must not go until I make him ashamed to look at me—so. But how can I? How can I?" Toward morning sleep came and when Donelle awoke, Norval had had his breakfast and gone. After the morning’s work was finished Jo asked Donelle to go on an errand. A poor woman back among the hills was ill and needed food of the right sort. "I have a crick in my back, Donelle," Jo explained, "I don’t believe I could walk there, and the road is unbroken. Molly is too old to force her way through. If you take the wood path, it won’t be too far." "I’d love to go, Mamsey. It’s such a still day, and did you ever see such sunlight?" The release was welcome, poor Donelle still was thrashing about in her confused emotions. She was grateful that Alton was gone; she yearned to see him, and so it went. "I’ll be back as soon as I can, Mamsey. Is the basket packed?" It was only eight o’clock when Donelle set forth. She wore her long, dark fur coat, a cowl-like hood of fur covered her pale hair, her delicate, white face shone sweetly in the soft, dusky setting. The eyes were full of sunlight but her mouth drooped pathetically. Jo remembered the look long after the girl had departed. "I mustn’t keep her here," she reasoned; "I’m going to write again to that Mr. Law. I will wait until spring; he couldn’t come now. I’m going to ask him to come up here and talk things over." Then Mam’selle went to her loom and worked like a Fate; there were piles of wonderful things to sell. Surely they would help Donelle to her own! And so Jo worked and dreamed and feared, while Donelle made her way over the crusty snow, through the silent, holy woods, over the shining hill to the sick woman in her distant cabin.