It took them a long time in the intense darkness to reach Ezra’s house where a light was glimmering from the window. When they at length reached the bars, Madame said, “I will not go in. Oh, I know what you would say, but I would prefer not. Olive would resent my bringing you back to her.” “You mistake Olive utterly,” said Ezra earnestly. “Believe me, hers is a simple nature, she would have no such feelings as you think.” “Perhaps you are right, and that she is a child in mind and not yet a woman in heart. Possibly I endow her with feelings she could not even understand. I judge her by myself, and maybe all the while her little soul is possessed with nothing but content at the thought that her pretty hat is all safe. The butterfly must not be blamed if it does not rise as high as the lark. Farewell.” Olive was waiting for him impatiently, anxiously. “Oh Ezra, where have you been? And isn’t your face black? You are every whit as black as Napoleon Pompey. Wasn’t it fun?” “Fun? What was fun?” asked Ezra languidly. “Why, the fire of course, now that it is all over. It was so exciting. I was as hungry as a hawk when I came in. I really could not wait, so I had supper. You must have yours this very minute. Do you know, it is one o’clock at night, and you have not tasted a morsel of food since twelve o’clock yesterday? Do you realize that?” She bustled around and got his supper ready, chatting brightly all the while over the incidents of the fire, making fun and merriment out of them all. Ezra sat stupidly watching her, his head throbbing so heavily that he could scarcely think. He could eat nothing when the supper was ready, and Olive felt aggrieved. “I think you might, just to please me. It would do you good, for you must be hungry, I should think.” He swallowed a few morsels and said he would go to bed, that rest was what he most needed, his head ached badly. He was thankful she made no inquiries after his adventures during that eventful night. He would have found it difficult to tell a connected tale with that pain in his head. He asked Olive if she had gone down into the Gully. “No,” she said, “I started to go, but it was darker than I thought, so I came up again and followed round by the high prairie where there was a chance of meeting somebody. I came home with Willette.” “The fire did get into the old field after all,” said Ezra. “And were the weeds burnt?” “Yes.” “Oh! I wish I had been there to see. Wasn’t it a lovely blaze-up?” “Yes, it blazed up,” said Ezra. Olive didn’t notice that he seemed ill, he thought with some bitterness. Madame would have divined it, no matter how hard he had tried to conceal the fact. After all, it was not her fault that she was made differently. The butterfly was not to be blamed if it did not soar as high as the lark. CHAPTER XIV. COTTERELL “WANTED.”