The mother murmured apprehensively, “They say _he_ is devoted to Miss Linden,” but neither answered. Ada had benefited, like the other girls, by his attentions, she had been given candy and flowers and made one in his theater-parties, but it was the secret conviction of all three women that all his general attentions were simply a cloak for his real devotion to Ada. The others were just a circle—she was the particular one; and Heaven only knows how many girls in this circle shared the same conviction. His smile and nod now seemed to speak of an intimacy that blotted out all his preference for Miss Linden. “You had better pull down the shade now,” said Mrs. Snow, after a few minutes. “It’s time to light the lamp.” “No, wait a moment—there’s another train in.” Miss Bertha’s eyes pierced the gloom. “The Carpenter boys, those new people in the Farley house, and that’s all. No, there’s somebody ’way behind—I declare, it’s Miss Linden! She’s ever so much more stylish-looking than she was at first. I wonder she didn’t come on the train ahead. Who can that be with her? Why—” there was a pause. “I suppose he must have just happened to get off with her at the station,” said Miss Bertha in an altered voice. “Oh, yes; I’m sure that’s it,” said Ada. CHAPTER EIGHT “What is all this that I hear about Dosia and Lawson Barr?” asked Justin abruptly, one evening when he and his wife were at home alone together, a rather unusual occurrence now. Either he was out, or there was company, or Dosia was sitting with them by the table on which stood the reading-lamp. Just now she was staying overnight with Miss Torrington, at the other end of the town, “across the track,” practicing for a concert. Justin had dropped his collar-button that morning in the process of dressing, and the small incident was productive of unforeseen results. The hunt for it had delayed him to a later train and a seat by Billy Snow. “What is this I hear about Dosia and Lawson Barr? They say she has been going in with him on the express nearly every morning this month. She may have been coming out with him, too, for all I know.” “Who says so?” asked Lois, startled, but contemptuous. “Billy, for one.” “I do not see what business it is of his.” “That hasn’t anything to do with it, Lois. As a matter of fact, the boy wouldn’t have told me at all if I hadn’t happened to sit with him to-day; he’s heard plenty of remarks on it, though, and he’s cut up about it. They sat in front of us, some seats down, entirely oblivious of everybody; it might have been their private car. It gave me a start, I can tell you, when Billy said it was not the first time. Has she said anything to you about it?” “Yes, I think she has mentioned once or twice that she had seen him on the train; I know he brought her home one afternoon when she was late. But I haven’t paid any particular attention; and, after all, there’s no harm in it.”