“She is thinking of him,” he thought bitterly, and he sighed unconsciously. Norine woke from her reverie. “My! what a sigh that was!” she said, laughing. “Tell me what you were thinking about to cause so doleful a sigh.” Conway did not smile in return. He turned his head so as to see her face. “I was thinking of the future,” he said quietly. Norine’s face wore a troubled look for a moment. “Don’t think ill of the future,” she said. “Who can tell what it may have in store for you?” “You will return to Bright Farm next summer, I suppose?” hazarded Conway abruptly. “Next summer is a long way off yet,” replied Norine. “I hope to come, of course; but you are not to expect me to spend all my summers in idleness. I will have work to do.” “What great work are you contemplating?” inquired Conway. “Well, there is Clinton’s education, for one thing, and that necessitates an improvement in my own. I will study--I would not care to have my boy think me ignorant when he grows up.” Conway entered heartily into this. “I think you are right,” he said. “Not that you are ignorant, for you are not, but because good reading is of great benefit to all, and it is well for a woman in your position to broaden your ideas as much as possible, that you may be better able to do what good you can understandingly.” “I was not thinking of myself,” protested Norine, “but of Clinton.” “Oh, you will trouble yourself too much about him, of course,” replied the doctor, gazing fondly at her. “That is to be expected from a woman. Do not commence with him too soon; it is better that his mind should remain fallow for a time; then put him into some good public school, and he will take care of himself. If he has to rough it a little, it will be all the better for him. I am only saying this professionally,” continued Conway. “I have no idea of being able to convince you. You will coddle the lad as most mothers do, and probably spoil him before he is ten years old.” “I shall do nothing of the sort,” returned Norine indignantly. “It is all well enough for you to talk, but you coddle him, as you call it, a great deal more than I do, and so does Jim;” and she marched into the house with her head erect and cheeks burning. And so the summer passed, and the chilly evenings began to herald the coming of fall, and the little family at the cottage were getting ready for their return to the city. Norine had been through the woods with a little basket of things for the Higgins children, and returned, as was usual with her, by way of the little hut in the woods. It was a very dilapidated little hut now, and would have fallen long ago but that Conway, knowing how often she went there, took a little care of it for her. She had been singing merrily as she came through the woods, but the song stopped when she came in sight of the shanty; and as she stopped at the door and looked around the place, her face became thoughtful.