Jack detected the trouble in her voice, and asked who Tom Walker was. It did not take long for Eloise to tell all she knew, while Jack listened thoughtfully, resolving to seek out Tom, and by thrashing, or threatening, or hiring, turn him from any plan he might have against this little girl, who seemed to him far too young and dainty to be thrown upon the mercy of the rabble he had seen by the school-house with Tom Walker at their head. "Don't worry about Tom. Big bullies like him are always cowards. You'll get along all right," he said encouragingly, with a growing desire to take the helpless girl in his arms and carry her away from Tom Walker and Mr. Bills and Mrs. Biggs, and the whole of her surroundings, which she did not seem at all to fit. He wanted to entertain her, and told her of an excursion on the water he had taken the previous day with Howard Crompton,--the last of the season, he said, and very enjoyable. He wished she had been there. Then he spoke of the Colonel, laughing at his peculiarities, and asking if she had ever heard of the Crompton "Formula." She said she had from Ruby Ann, and was glad she was not to be subjected to questioning on it, as she knew she should fail in everything except the four _rights_. She might manage them, but it was not necessary for her to be examined by anybody, since her normal school diploma was a license to teach anywhere in the State. "Hanged if I think I could manage the _rights_!" Jack said. "Spelling is not my forte, and Howard, who is great at it, missed the last one." "How is Mr. Howard?" Eloise asked, and Jack replied, "All right. Has gone to church like a good Christian. I ought to have gone, but I thought I'd come here, as you might be lonely here alone." It flashed through Eloise's mind to wonder how he knew she was alone, but she made no comment, except to say that the rector, Mr. Arthur Mason, called upon her the day before. "Did he?" Jack said. "I believe he is a fine fellow. Howard likes him, but for some reason the Colonel does not, and when Howard said he was going to church, and suggested bringing Mr. Mason home to lunch, he growled out something about not liking company on Sunday. He is a queer old cove, and does not seem to care for anybody but Miss Amy. He is devoted to her, and she is a lovely woman, and must once have been brilliant, but she puzzles me greatly. She seems to be rational on every subject except her life in California. If any allusion is made to that she looks dazed at once, and says, 'I can't talk about it. I don't remember.'" "My father died in California, and my mother is there now," Eloise said sadly. Jack had not supposed she had a mother. Mrs. Brown, who sat beside him at the commencement exercises in Mayville, had spoken of her as an orphan, and he replied, "I had somehow thought your mother dead." "No; oh, no!" Eloise answered quickly. "She is not dead; she is--"