Marion felt a little desolate as the last of the light-hearted homeward-bound crowd left the front door with faces bright with the happy prospects before them. In their own delight the girls were rather thoughtless in farewells to the lonely girl who was left. She could hardly keep back the tears as she turned away from the door and walked slowly to the empty schoolroom.

She sat down by the desk, and with her chin resting in the palm of her left hand picked up a pencil and scribbled idly on an envelope that lay at hand. She did not know what she was writing, and her thoughts were so absorbing that she did not hear the approach of a gentleman with gray hair and a black mustache, who came in through the door behind her and stood a moment watching her with his hat in his hand, till he spoke; then she started so violently that she almost fell off her chair.

“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed, retreating a little way to give her time to recover. “I must seem impertinent, but I am so much at home in my sister’s house that I am apt to prowl around the rooms in this lawless way.”

“Then you are Mr. Eaton?” said Marion, looking up into the kind, trustworthy eyes, which returned her gaze with one as honest and frank as her own.

“Thank you for guessing me out like an easy riddle. Now see if I can make as shrewd a guess. You are Marion!”

“How could you know?” said Marion, wonderingly.

“That is not the only thing I know,” said Mr. Eaton. “I know that when you turned and saw me you thought I had come to kidnap Ethel Bellamy?”

“O,” said Marion, coloring violently, “how could you think that?”

“You don’t deny it, though,” said Mr. Eaton, looking very much as if he wanted to laugh heartily.

“But how did you know?” persisted Marion, pressing the backs of her hands to her red cheeks, which would not grow cool.

“I have a Yankee trick of putting two and two together, and my sister is a graphic letter-writer. I am so sorry I was detained and could not get here before she went away.”

“She is coming back the day after to-morrow,” Marion told him, “and I know she expected you, but she was obliged to go to New York on business.”

“Did she take the little one? But never mind telling me if there is a lingering doubt in your mind that I may not after all belong to the vicious lot who are after poor Ethel Gray’s child”—this with a queer twinkle in his eyes which made Marion laugh too.

“You look so exactly like Mrs. Abbott that I am sure of you.”

“Do I?” he said, pulling his heavy mustache thoughtfully.

“O, of course she has no mustache,” laughed Marion, “but the eyes—”

“And the gray hair? Yes, we are a pair of grizzled twins, and people generally think us much alike. But, Miss Marion, do you feel certain enough of me to tell me if the little girl has gone with my sister? I had hoped to find her here.”

“Mrs. Abbott did not like to leave her, but she took Candace to take care of her.”

“Then it seems to me that the burden of entertaining me for a day or two is likely to fall to your unhappy lot. What shall you do to amuse me?”

“I will show you which room you are to have and order a big pitcher of hot water sent right up. Mrs. Abbott asked me to if you came.”

“That will be very amusing. Thank you.”

“I like him so much,” Marion said to herself as she came up from the kitchen after giving orders for the hot water and suggesting that dinner should be served on one of the little tables used to stand dishes on instead of the long T-shaped table, which was a pleasant sight to see when teachers and scholars surrounded it, but would be doleful for two lone diners to contemplate.

She and Mr. Eaton did not meet again till the dinner-bell summoned them to the long, lonely dining-room. He was standing behind one of the two chairs Liny had placed at opposite sides of the little square table. He made a slight motion, which she misunderstood, for her to take the chair upon which his hand rested. She rather shyly walked toward the other side, and he quickly stepped around and drew out that chair for her, waiting with grave, old-fashioned courtesy to take his own seat till she was comfortably settled in hers. It was all very embarrassing to Marion. She colored distressingly, but Mr. Eaton, whose manners were always charming, talked to her so entertainingly that she was soon smiling and enjoying the cosy dinner with him very much.

“What would you have done if I had not come?” he asked, after Liny had put the dessert on the table and left the room.

“I should have been very lonely, and I don’t believe I could have eaten any dinner.”

“I have enjoyed my dinner far more for having you to eat it with me, but it would be affectation for me to say that I couldn’t eat without company, for I took every meal alone for two months in an African hut and had a very fair appetite on some very peculiar diet.”

“O, what made you stay so long in that kind of a place?” said Marion, adding, as she remembered he had been a missionary, “Did you stay because you thought it was your duty?”

“I felt that it was my duty to get away as soon as I possibly could, for I had strong reasons for supposing that I was only fed, watched, and tended by my black captors to keep me in order for a certain annual ceremonial which was considered a very poor show indeed unless a few captives were sacrificed to lend Éclat to the occasion.” “O, O, how dreadful!”

“I don’t think I liked any part of it except the escape. That will always be a gratifying remembrance.”

“Lily said you told lovely stories,” said Marion.

“Lily Dart, if it is she you mean, is a great friend of mine, and a person with an insatiable thirst for stories. But I don’t propose to inflict one on you now.”

“But, O, please tell me how you got away.”

“Some day when we both feel like it I will tell you the beginning and end of this story. As for the middle part I can tell you now that my escape from the hut was not of a hair-breadth character, although the journey I had to take to put a safe space between myself and my enemies was sufficiently exciting.”

“I did not intend to tell any traveler’s stories this vacation,” he added, smiling at the intense interest in Marion’s face, “but you have almost beguiled me into it.”

“O, I should so like to hear how you got out of the hut,” said Marion.

“There is generally a story within a story. Six months before I had administered some generous doses of medicine to a chief who was believed to be dying, with the result of effecting a rapid cure. This man, with some attendant warriors, happened to call a halt in the vicinity of my prison. As a matter of etiquette the captives were exhibited to the visitor. I did not then recognize the recovered invalid in his feathers and paint, but during the night he stole into my tent and by signs and the use of the little of his native language which was at my command we had a short but delightful interview which ended in his taking me out of the hut, stepping over a dozen dark sleepers. They usually guarded me vigilantly, but my friend had managed to drug them into stupidity. After passing them safely I was given over to the care of two men who guided me on the way I wished to pursue till daylight, when they left me to my own devices.”

“O, how interesting!” said Marion, drawing a long breath. “I have read about savage countries and people, but I never expected to know any one who had really seen them.”