He bent to look keenly into her face, as he seated himself at her side. “Isn’t that so,—Barbara?” At the sound of her name in that new, strange voice of his the girl started and almost shivered. She was beginning to be afraid of herself—this no less new and strange self, who was tired of being poor and hardworked and anxious, and who longed after comfort and ease and affection of some strong, compelling sort. She lifted her eyes to his. “I have been thinking many things,” she murmured, “since—since you——” He laughed under his breath. “Yes; and you have been doing some things, too,” he said. “I heard you were looking for a place to teach, and—it didn’t encourage me to suppose that you were thinking very favorably of what I proposed. Did you secure a position?” “N-o, I didn’t,” she acknowledged. She hesitated visibly, then added, “They told me you were a school commissioner, and that I must apply to you.” “Why didn’t you apply to me?” he wanted to know. “Didn’t you think I would be a good sort of person to help you in your desire for independence?” “I didn’t ask you,” she said, “because——” “Well?” he questioned sharply. “You didn’t ask me for help because——” “How could I?” she demanded, with a spirited lift of her head. “I asked you for help before and you refused.” He looked at her with piercing keenness. “Did I?” he said gravely. “Well, I offered you—a position. You haven’t forgotten, have you?” Barbara’s heart beat suffocatingly fast. His eyes were on her face, compelling her, mastering her. “Would you—Could I take care of Jimmy just the same?” she asked, in a muffled voice. He gave his horse a sharp cut with the whip before he answered. “I can’t see why you should bring the boy into our affairs,” he said coldly. “But he can live with us—for the present, if you like. Then there is the Preston farm; as I’ve already told you, you may do as you like with it.” Barbara looked mistily away over the fields past which they were driving, the sound of meadow-larks, calling and answering, and the soft jubilant gurgle of a bluebird on a nearer fence-rail reaching her like vaguely reproachful voices out of a dead past. Then as now had the meadow-larks called “Sweet! oh, my sweet!”—in the one spring-time when David Whitcomb loved her. “I shall have to—to think,” she murmured. “I am afraid——” “Of what?” he demanded. “Of me?” She did not answer, and again he cut the horse impatiently with his keen whip-lash, holding the spirited creature with a strong grasp on the reins as he did so. “Well,” he said, after a long silence, “I’m afraid I can’t make myself over, even for you. But I’ll tell you something, my girl, there are worse men in the world than Stephen Jarvis, and perhaps you’ll fall in with some of ’em, if you turn me down. Look at me, will you?” Unwillingly she turned her face to his. “I shall not take a silly _no_ for an answer,” he said under his breath. “I never have, and I shan’t begin with you. I need you, and you need me.”