“I _must_ call you Kenneth for once,” she said. “I wanted to all the time, but you seemed so big and so tall, with whiskers, and the boy Kenneth’s face was so smooth, and I thought maybe you wouldn’t like it, and I am fourteen, and must drop all my childish manners, auntie says. She tells me to be womanly, and not say out all I think and feel, and I do try to, and I have been trained into a kind of automaton; but it’s so hard, especially here, where I haven’t acted myself. But don’t think I’ve forgotten, for I haven’t. I remember the week spent here, and know I was a very pert, forward child, asking questions I ought not to have asked, and telling everything I knew. Don’t stop me,” she continued, as Kenneth began to protest. “I know what I did, and am ashamed of some things, but was so happy with the cats and in the barn and on that sled, and at the Christmas tree. Oh, that tree! How many times I have dreamed of it, and of the boy who gave everything and had nothing for himself.” “Yes, I had,” Kenneth interrupted eagerly. “I had _you_! Don’t you remember? You called me up and gave yourself to me, and I said I’d keep you forever!” There was a good deal of the woman in the young girl of fourteen and the bright color flamed into her cheeks as she replied: “I was a child, and did not know any better. I have taken it back.” “No, Connie. Don’t do that,” Kenneth said, impulsively, and laid his hand on hers. For a moment Connie’s clear blue eyes looked at him with something like rebuke in them; then, with a toss of her head, which made her like the Connie of the sled, she said: “It isn’t worth having. I am not what I was then. I have been moulded and trained till there is but little left of the Connie you used to know, though in some things I am unchanged. I told you you were the ‘_bestest boy_’ and had the ‘_goodest face_’ I ever saw, and—and—I think so still.” The moon was shining full upon her, bringing out every point of her beauty, and Kenneth might have stooped and kissed her, as he did when she first told him her opinion of him, had it not been that just then the mail carrier from the post-office at The 4 Corners came down the hill: “Hallo!” he called, stopping suddenly as he recognized Connie, who he knew had been spending the day at the farmhouse, and was presumably bound for the train. “If either of you is goin’ to the cars, you haven’t much time to spare. Better climb in here.” “I must not be left. Let’s get in!” Connie exclaimed, and they were soon driving rapidly to the station, which they reached just as the train came up, and Mrs. Hart’s face looked from the window in quest of Connie. There was only time for a hurried good-by, and then the train sped on its way, and Connie was gone for a second time.