Olive sighed, but she could only submit, in the hope that her uncle would relent, or her sister come to her senses some day. CHAPTER ELEVENTH. SCHOOL was to begin on Wednesday as usual, and Olive arrived in Basswoods on Monday evening at dusk. She found several people waiting to welcome her—Mr. Gregory and Augusta, Mr. Landon and Mr. Jones, and last not least, Mr. Prendergrass. As Olive shook hands with the last named gentleman, and received his half-formal, half-embarrassed greeting, her mind adverted for the first time to what Mrs. Dimsden had so elegantly said, about her setting her cap for the school-master, and she wondered whether there could be any possible danger of his making a mistake—of his fancying that she was giving him encouragement, but she dismissed it as too absurd to deserve consideration. Ruth was not at the station, but was waiting for her at the door of the old house which Olive was quite surprised to see looking as usual, forgetting that houses do not generally change very much in the course of four weeks. It seemed like home to be again in her comfortable, cheerful room, which was just as she left it, except that a beautiful bouquet stood in a little vase of biscuit-ware on the table. "Louisa Landon brought that over," said Ruth, seeing that Olive's eyes were fixed upon it, the moment she entered the room. "Did she?" asked Olive, taking it up, to examine it. "Why of course, you know she did," retorted Ruth shortly, but not unkindly. "What is the use of pretending you don't? Don't you think I have guessed all about it by this time?" "I am glad you have, I am sure," said Olive, laughing and blushing; "for it will save me the awkwardness of telling you, which I have been dreading all the way. Well, what do you think about it?" "Me! I don't know any thing about such things. I think Walter is a very nice young man, and you are a very nice young woman, and I dare say you will be as happy as most people. I hope so, I am sure." Olive glanced at Ruth in surprise, and saw that she seemed a good deal agitated, though she was stooping over Olive's trunk, as if to hide her face from observation. The expression passed away as she looked, and she was as calm as ever. Olive remembered the same look once before, when Ruth had spoken of Augusta's brother, and she had wondered at the time, but now something in her own feelings gave her a clue to her friend's. "Don't think I am cross, Olive," said Ruth presently. "Sometimes I remember things I would rather forget, and it upsets me for a moment. Cool as you think me, I was not always so. Augusta can tell you—she is the only one who knows. I never speak or think of it, if I can help it. I wish you every happiness, my dear, and I think your prospects are as fair as any one's. I have known Walter from a child. Don't talk to me now—I shall get quiet presently."