Granville extended one rough, brown, boyish hand over the fence, and Ellen laid her little, soft hand in it. He pulled her gently close, then Ellen lifted her face, and the boy bent his, and the two kissed each other over the fence. Then the boy went on down the street, but he did not whistle, and Ellen went back to the doorstep, and, looking about to be sure that none of the men in the sitting-room saw, pulled off one little shoe and drew forth a sprig of southernwood, or boy's-love, which was crushed under her foot. That day Floretta Vining had told her that if she would put a sprig of boy's-love in her shoe, the very first boy she met would be the one she was going to marry; and Ellen, who was passing from one grade of school to another, had tried it. Chapter XIV The high-school master was a distant relative of the Lloyd's, through whom he had obtained the position. One evening when he was taking tea with them at Cynthia Lennox's, he spoke of Ellen. "I have one really remarkable scholar," he said, with a curious air of self-gratulation, as if he were principally responsible for it; "her name is Brewster--Ellen Brewster." "Good land! That must be the child that ran away five or six years ago, and all the town up in arms over it," said Mrs. Norman Lloyd. "Don't you remember, Cynthia?" "Yes," replied Cynthia, and continued pouring tea. Cynthia was very little changed. In some faces time seems to engrave lines delicately, once for all, and then lay by. She was rather more charming now than when one had looked at her with any expectancy of youth, since there was now no sense of disappointment. "I remember that," said Norman Lloyd. "The child would never tell where she had been. A curious case." "Well," said the school-master, "leaving that childish episode out of the question, she has a really remarkable mind. If she were a boy, I should advise a thorough education and a profession. I should as it is, if her family were able to bear the expense. She has that intuitive order of mind which is wonderful enough, though not, after all, so rare in a girl; but in addition she has the logical, which, according to my experience, is almost unknown in a woman. She ought to have an education." "But," said Risley, "what is the use of educating that unfortunate child?" "What do you mean?"