Some indefinable thing about the action made her conscious that there was a change in his feelings. It checked her rising emotions and made her curious. What was he embarrassed about? The girl stole a look at him, which left him still more disturbed and uneasy. It was an intangible thing upon which she could not remark and yet could not fail to recognize. Luther had never been awkward in her presence before. Their association had been of the most offhand and informal character. As a boy of fifteen he had carried her, a girl of eleven, over many a snowbank their first winter of school in the Prairie Home school district. They had herded cattle together, waded the shallow ponds and hunted for mussel shells, and until this year they had seen each other daily. This year Luther had taken a man's place in the fields and the girl had seen him at rare intervals. She was not conscious of the change which this year of dawning adolescence had brought to them both. Luther had developed a growing need of a razor on his thin, yellow face, while she, four years younger, had also matured. The outgrown calico dress she wore was now halfway to her knees, its sleeves exposed some inches of sunburned wrists, and the scanty waist disclosed a rapidly rounding form. Young womanhood was upon her, unknown to her, and but now discovered by Luther Hansen. For the first time Luther felt the hesitancy of a youth in the presence of a maid. "I shall miss you _so!_" the girl said, looking at him, puzzled by the indefinable something in his manner which was a new element in their communications. Her frank curiosity put the boy utterly to rout. The blood surged to his pale face and pounded in the veins under his ears, half choking him; it cut short the leave-taking and left the child bewildered and half hurt. She watched the calico pony lope away in a cloud of scurrying grasshoppers and wondered in a child-like way what could have happened. This abrupt and confused departure increased the loneliness she felt. He was her one real friend, and her tears came again as she turned toward the house. There was little time given the child to indulge her feelings, or to speculate upon a friend's confusion or adieus, for a sharp voice summoned her to the house and fresh duties. "When I call you I want you to step spry," was the greeting the child received from the stooped figure putting the potatoes over the fire to fry, as she entered the door. Mrs. Farnshaw had her head tied up in a white cloth; "the spell" had arrived. It was no time to tell of the loss of the flax, and Luther's going was not mentioned, because Mrs. Farnshaw shared the public contempt for his nationality and had failed to get her daughter's confidence in that quarter.