"They need a new teacher in this district," said Albert abruptly, and looking full at her. "If it is your mission to put energy into us, why not begin the missionary work there? Take the boys young." She had no reply to this but a look of reproach. He had put away her friendship for himself, he recommended her to other matters. Tacitly, he implied that she was incapable of the sacrifice involved in his suggestion. It was ironical. She turned to walk on, but Albert started and caught her hand. "Don't be angry, Miss Julia! I only meant that it would be less dangerous with them than it has been with me. I--I am more stirred than you would like me to be----" His blazing eyes transfixed her. For an instant she stared, then drew her hand away and put it up to her face. "Yes," he continued brokenly, "I know it's no use to speak, you couldn't condescend to this paltry existence--you want the fulness and brightness of the city,--the company of an educated man. There isn't anything about me that's fit to associate with you. Well? I must beg pardon, I s'pose, and yet I couldn't forbear letting you know that, while you've been trying to put some vim into the lazy country fellow, you've waked up his heart, at least." Miss Stretton uncovered her face. They confronted one another--the bright, sweet girl, the handsome youth, aglow with passion. The land was poverty-stricken, the promise small, but there was freshness, beauty, peace all about. "He is good, he is noble," she thought. There crept into her face something that amazed him, but he did not stop to wonder at it. He saw fortune sweeping down a shower of gold at his feet, and it was no time to question her beneficence. By a step he lessened the little distance between them, and the two shadows melted into one along the sunny lane. "You are far brighter than I, Julia," he murmured after a while, "though your reasoning has never moved me any. But if you love me!--I think you will do whatever you wish with me." "I didn't mean this, at all," she returned, her lovely face sparkling with tears and smiles both at once. In her heart she felt that it was her nature, not his, which the future might change. Yet, when they concluded to walk on to the store, she looked about with a sense of responsibility and an eye to changes to come, while he--his face flushed with happiness--lounged beside her in the old indolent way--unreproved. APPLE BLOSSOMS[8]