‘I was very presuming to ask that of you about the chairs,’ he said. ‘I don’t know that I ever fully understood it before to-day. I am sure you will consider how young I was, Miss Spencer, only a boy----’ ‘Miss Spencer!’ she cried. ‘Jack, is that my name?’ ‘I suppose it must be,’ he said. ‘To come back and find you--as you are: after being so silly as to hope that we should meet just the same as ever, and that I should find you a child still----’ ‘Then you were disappointed in me, Jack?’ she said, in a low tone. ‘Disappointed!’ he cried. Then, after a pause: ‘Of course, it comes to the same thing. You are a young lady now; you’re not my old schoolfellow. I daren’t speak to you as I used, or think of you as I used. Many a dreary time, when I’d nothing else to be a little comfort, I’ve thought of what you said, that you would learn your algebra under the pear-tree and think of me.’ John was sad enough, for all the differences rushed upon his mind, and seemed to push him away from her side; and yet he could not but smile, thinking of the algebra which Elly never could learn. She understood him, for she smiled too. ‘I gave up the algebra a long time ago,’ she said, ‘almost as soon as you went away--for how could I learn it without you to help me? But I still kept going to the pear-tree all the same, and--thinking of you.’ ‘That was very good of you, Elly.’ ‘Ah, come, that’s something like,’ she cried. ‘Do you think, Mr. Sandford, whatever happened, I should ever call you anything but Jack?’ ‘That’s another thing--that’s natural; what could I be else? You may call me Jack, Jack, like a dog, if you please; but that doesn’t mean that I should be wanting in any respect to you.’ She gave him a look, half entreating, half upbraiding, and then she said, quietly, ‘Were you going to the--churchyard, Jack?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘May I go, too?’ ‘Oh, will you, Elly?’ That was the best way to dispel the prudery that had taken hold upon him. He could not be anything but natural beside _their_ graves. This was what Elly said to herself, knowing very well, all the while, that his prudery, as she called it, was the most natural of all, and that he and she sedately walking along together to make that sacred visit, were boy and girl no longer, and could not be Elly and Jack to each other again, save in a spasmodic and artificial way. Did not she know this as well, better than he?--for, naturally, the subject was one which presented itself in a stronger light to Elly than it could to John. But, nevertheless, it was agreeable to her to meet him in this way, and get over the dangerous barrier, if not permanently, at least for a little while. They went to the grave, all covered with May flowers, and kept in careful order, as John could see, and where Elly busied herself in picking out imaginary weeds and faded blooms leaving the young man free to think or pray, as he pleased.