"Why, Gray wrote you left home several days ago." "I did--but I stopped on the way to visit some kinfolks." "Oh. Well, aren't you coming? I'm lonesome, and I guess you will be too--without Mavis." "I won't have time to get lonesome." The girl smiled. "That's ungracious--but I want you to take the time." The boy looked at her; since his trial he had hardly spoken to her, and had rarely seen her. Somehow he had come to regard his presence at Colonel Pendleton's the following Christmas night as but a generous impulse on their part that was to end then and there. He had kept away from Marjorie thereafter, and if he was not to keep away now, he must make matters very clear. "Maybe your mother won't like it," he said gravely. "I'm a jail-bird." "Don't, Jason," she said, shocked by his frankness; "you couldn't help that. I want you to come." Jason was reddening with embarrassment now, but he had to get out what had been so long on his mind. "I'm comin' once anyhow. I know what she did for me and I'm comin' to thank her for doin' it." Marjorie was surprised and again she smiled. "Well, she won't like that, Jason," she said, and the boy, not misunderstanding, smiled too. "I'm comin'." Marjorie turned her horse. "I hope I'll be at home." Her mood had turned to coquetry again. Jason had meant to tell her that he knew she herself had been behind her mother's kindness toward him, but a sudden delicacy forbade, and to her change of mood he answered: "You will be--when I come." This was a new deftness for Jason, and a little flush of pleasure came to the girl's cheeks and a little seriousness to her eyes. "Well, you ARE mighty nice, Jason--good-by." "Good-by," said the boy soberly. At her own gate the girl turned to look back, but Jason was striding across the fields. She turned again on the slope of the hill but Jason was still striding on. She watched him until he had disappeared, but he did not turn to look and her heart felt a little hurt. She was very quiet that night, so quiet that she caught a concerned look in her mother's eyes, and when she had gone to her room her mother came in and found her in a stream of moonlight at her window. And when Mrs. Pendleton silently kissed her, she broke into tears. "I'm lonely, mother," she sobbed; "I'm so lonely." A week later Jason sat on the porch one night after supper and his mother came to the doorway. "I forgot to tell ye, Jason, that Marjorie Pendleton rid over here the day you got here an' axed if you'd come home." "I saw her down the pike that day," said Jason, not showing the surprise he felt. Steve Hawn, coming around the corner of the house, heard them both and on his face was a malicious grin. "Down the pike," he repeated. "I seed ye both a-talkin', up thar at the edge of the woods. She looked back at ye twice, but you wouldn't take no notice. Now that Gray ain't hyeh I reckon you mought--"