"I've got well acquainted with Roger," she wrote. "He's easy to get acquainted with. Now I think of it though he says little or nothing about himself but he leads me to talk and tell about you all in a way that surprises me. If his interest was prying I'm sure I wouldn't have told him anything. I know well now it isn't. Does Millie know how he feels toward her? I saw it all last night. I was telling him about my past life and how poor and forlorn we had been and how I had told Millie all about it and then how Millie had just treted me as if I were as good as she was. As I talked he became so white I thought he'd faint. Suddenly he burst out despairingly, 'I hoped she was proud but she isn't--I could overcome pride. But what can I do when I'm just detested? There, I've made a fool of myself,' he said savagelike after a moment, and he hurried away. For the last two days he's been so quiet and looked so stern and sad that his family don't know what to make of him, but I know what's the matter, and I feel sorry for him, for he seems to me more like a man than any of the young fellows I've seen in town. Don't tell Millie for I don't want to even seem to meddle." But Belle had no gift of reticence, and she not only showed her sister the letter, but overwhelmed her with reproaches for her "heartless treatment of Roger." As a natural result Mildred was only more irritated and prejudiced against the young man than ever. "You are all absurdly unreasonable," she cried. "What have I ever done to make him turn white or red, or to 'burst out despairingly,' and all that kind of sentimental nonsense? Because he is lackadaisical and is experiencing strange, vague emotions, must I be afflicted in like manner? Must I break faith with one I do love and do violence to my own feelings, just because this farmer wants me to? You know what's the matter with him--Clara saw at a glance--and the course I'm taking is the only way to cure him. All his talk about friendship is transparent folly. If I took your advice it would make him only more and more infatuated; and now I haven't it on my conscience that I gave him one bit of encouragement. I'm sorry for him, of course. I shall be more sorry for his mother and sister if he is guilty of the folly of leaving home. If, instead of doing his duty by them, he comes mooning after me here, when he knows it is of no use, I shall lose my respect for him utterly." There seemed so much downright common-sense in this view of the affair that even Belle found no words in reply. Her reason took Mildred's part, but her warm little heart led her to shake her head ominously at her sister, and then sleepily she sought the rest her long, tiresome day required. CHAPTER XX SEVERAL QUIET FORCES AT WORK.