I think her father anticipates the same. For he told me a few minutes later that he had sent for tutors to teach his daughter music and the languages. And I noticed that at this she pouted again, and indeed bore herself in a way which promised less for her future learning than for that influence which breathes from gleaming eyes and witching smiles. Ah, I fear she is a frivolous fairy, but how pretty she is, and how dangerously captivating to a man who has once allowed himself to study her changes of feeling and countenance. When I came away I felt that I had gained nothing, and lost--what? Some of the complacency of spirit which I had acquired after much struggle and stern determination. * * * * * Colonel Schuyler has not yet returned, and now Orrin has gone away. Indeed, no one knows where to find him nowadays, for he is here and there on his great white horse, riding off one day and coming back the next, ever busy, and, strange to say, always cheerful. He is making money, I hear, buying up timber and then selling it to builders, but he does not sell to one builder, whose house seems to suffer in consequence. Where is the Colonel, and why does he not come home and look after his own? I have learned her secret at last, and in a strange enough way. I was waiting for her father in his own little room, and as he did not come as soon as I anticipated, I let my secret despondency have its way for a moment, and sat leaning forward, with my head buried in my hands. My face was to the fire and my back to the door, and for some reason I did not hear it open, and was only aware of the presence of another person in the room by the sound of a little gasp behind me, which was choked back as soon as it was uttered. Feeling that this could come from no one but Juliet, I for some reason hard to fathom sat still, and the next moment became conscious of a touch soft as a rose-leaf settle on my hair, and springing up, caught the hand which had given it, and holding it firmly in mine, gave her one look which made her chin fall slowly on her breast and her eyes seek the ground in the wildest distress and confusion. "Juliet--" I began. But she broke in with a passion too impetuous to be restrained: "Do not--do not think I knew or realized what I was doing. It was because your head looked so much like his as you sat leaning forward in the firelight that I--I allowed myself one little touch just for the heart's ease it must bring. I--I am so lonesome, Philo, and--and--" I dropped her hand. I understood the whole secret now. My hair is blonde like Orrin's, and her feelings stood confessed, never more to be mistaken by me. "You love Orrin!" I gasped; "you who are pledged to Colonel Schuyler!" "I love Orrin," she whispered, "and I am pledged to Colonel Schuyler. But you will never betray me," she said.