During all the long weeks while Chip had awaited her lover’s coming, one hope had been hers–that his return would end all her loneliness and begin a season of the happy, care-free days like those by the lake once more.

And there were many reasons for it.

In this quiet, strictly religious, gossip-loving village, a dependant upon charity, as it were, and with Hannah’s sneers, Chip had slowly but surely learned how little akin she was to them all, and how distrustful they all were of her. This knowledge had come by degrees: first, from the way in which the older pupils at school regarded her, having always kept aloof; then the insistent staring she received each Sunday at church; the somewhat chilly reception she had met in a social way; and lastly, a seeming indifference on Angie’s part. There was no reason for it all, so far as Chip could understand. She walked in the straight and narrow path laid out for her each day, made herself useful between school hours at Aunt Comfort’s, studied hard, thanked Angie for every trifle, and after her first unfortunate experience in defending her belief in spites and Old Tomah’s hobgoblins, she had never referred to them again. But the seeming fact that she was disliked and unwelcome here had slowly forced itself upon her and added to her loneliness.

It was all to end, however, when Ray came. In him or from him she would find a welcome. He knew her as she was, and what she was. He had not been distrustful, but tender and loving, and all clouds and sorrow and all humiliations would fade away when he came.

She had pictured to herself, also, how much they would be together and where; how he would come to Aunt Comfort’s the first evening and tell all about his winter in the wilderness and Old Cy,–all about the trap-setting, gum-gathering, and the deep snows she knew so much about. Maybe he would bring his banjo now and then and play and sing the darky songs she had hummed so many times. Possibly he might come and meet her occasionally on the way home from school; and when vacation came, how many long rambles they would take in the dear old woods, with no such ogre as the half-breed to spoil them. It had all been a rosy-hued dream with her, while she waited his coming. And now he was here!

For the first few moments after he kissed her upraised lips, she could not speak for very joy; and then, as hand in hand they started toward the village, her speech came.

“I’ve been so lonesome,” she said simply, “I’ve counted the days, and come down here to meet you daily, for over a month. I don’t like it here, and nobody likes me, I guess. I’m so glad you’ve come, though. Now I shan’t be lonesome no more. I’ve studied hard, too,” she added, with an accent of pride. “I can read and spell words of six syllables. I’ve ciphered up to decimal fractions, an’ begun grammar.”

“I’m glad to get home, too,” answered Ray, as simply. “It was lonesome in the woods all winter, when we couldn’t tend the traps. But I’ve made a lot of money–’most five hundred dollars–all mine, too. How is everybody?” And so they dropped from sentiment into commonplace.

At the tavern he secured his belongings. At the corner where their ways parted, he bade Chip a light good-by, and with an “I’ll see you soon,” left her.

Her hero had arrived. They had met, kissed as lovers should, and the lonely waiting and watching days were at an end and a new life was to begin for Chip.

Little did she realize what it would mean for her, or how utterly her hopes were to fail.

“He will come to-night,” her heart assured her, and that evening, without a word to Aunt Comfort or Hannah as to whom she expected, she arrayed herself in her one best dress and awaited his expected visit.

And what a propitious and all-favoring evening it was! The June night was balmy. Blooming lilacs and syringas half hid, as well as adorned, the porch of Aunt Comfort’s home. Aunt Comfort had just departed to make a call, Hannah was away at prayer meeting, and “no one nigh to hinder.”

But Chip waited in vain!

The drowsy hum of the Mizzy Falls, up the village street, came to her; the fireflies twinkled amid the dense-growing maples and over the broad meadows; whippoorwills called across the valley; but no lover came to Chip. One, two, almost three hours she waited and watched. Then came Aunt Comfort and Hannah, and heavy-hearted and lonesome once more, poor Chip retired.

At school next day her mind and heart were at war. The parts of speech and rules of subtraction and division seemed complete chaos, and when homeward bound, she loitered slowly along, hoping Ray would make amends and meet her on the way. But again he failed to appear.

And that night, when alone with Hannah, a worse blow came.

“I heerd young Stetson got back yesterday,” she said, fixing her steely blue eyes on Chip, “an’ you went down the road to meet him. I should think you’d be ’shamed o’ yourself. If you’re callatin’ on settin’ your cap for him, ’twon’t do a mite o’ good. His aunt wouldn’t think o’ havin’ sich an outcast ez you for him–that I can tell ye.”

But not a word of reply came from poor Chip. Such speeches were not new to her, and she had long before ceased to answer them. But this one, from its very truth, hurt more than all others had, and, crushed by it, she stole away out of the house.

No thought that Ray might call came to her. She only wished to escape somewhere, that she might cry away her misery and shame in solitude.

The evening was but a repetition of the previous one. The same sweet influence and silvered light was all about, but no heed of its beauty came to Chip. Instead, she felt herself a shameful thing of no account. Her lover had failed her–now she knew why, and as she sped along the lonely way to the schoolhouse, scarce conscious of her steps, all hope and all joy left her. Why or for what purpose she was hurrying toward this deserted little building, she knew not. Hot tears filled her eyes. Shame surged in her heart. She was a nobody in the eyes of all her world, and once she had reached the worn sill, so often crossed by her, she threw herself upon it and sobbed in utter despair.

For a long hour she sat there while the tide of feeling ebbed and tears came unchecked, and then the reaction came. With it, also, came something of the old courage and defiance that had once led her to face night, danger, and sixty miles of wilderness alone.

“I have made a mistake,” she said, sitting up, “and Hannah was right. I am a nobody here, and Ray has been told so and has kept away.”

And now with returning calm, and soothed, maybe, by the still, ethereal night, she saw herself, her past and present, as it all was. Back in an instant she sped in thought to the moment when, kneeling to these people, she begged for food; back to that first prayer she ever heard in the tent, and the offer of rescue that followed.And then her life here, with all its hopes and humiliation, rose before her.

“It was all wrong, my coming here,” she said, looking away to the village where lights twinkled; “I am not their sort, nor they mine. I’d better go away.”

Then, lifted a wee bit by this new resolve, she rose and returned to the house.

The tall clock in the sitting room was just chiming ten when she entered, and Aunt Comfort was there alone.

“Raymond was here this evening,” she said kindly, “and waited quite a spell. Where have you been?”

“Oh, nowhere,” answered Chip, pleasantly, “only I was lonesome and went out for a walk.”

Little did good Aunt Comfort realize what a volcano of hope, despair, shame, and tender love was concealed beneath that calm answer, or the new resolve budding in Chip’s heart.

No more did Ray suspect it when he met her coming home from school the next afternoon.

For during those two wretched hours when she was alone on the worn schoolhouse step, poor Chip McGuire, the low-born, pitiful waif, had become a woman and put away girlish impulses.“I couldn’t come to see you that first evening,” he said at once, “for uncle and aunty kept me talking till bedtime. Where were you last night?”

“Oh, I didn’t much think you would come,” answered Chip, calmly, smiling at him in a far-off way. “I am a nobody here, as you will soon find out, and I don’t expect–anything. I got lonesome last night and went off for a walk.”

Ray looked at her in wide-eyed astonishment. And well he might, for only two short days since she had met him, an eager, simple girl, and now she spoke like a woman. No word, no hint of his neglect, escaped her; but a cool indifference was apparent.

“Tell me about the woods and Old Cy,” she said, not waiting for him to speak again, “and how is the hermit? I want to know all about them.”

“Oh, I left ’em all right,” answered Ray, sullenly, for like a boy he wanted to be coaxed. And then, urged a little by Chip, he told his winter’s experience.

One episode interested her most of all–the strange trapper’s doings, his theft of their game, their pursuit of him and discovery of his hiding spot.

“I know who that was,” she said, when it was all described. “It was my father, and if he had caught you spying upon him, I guess he’d shot you both. He always used to go somewhere trapping every fall; but nobody could ever find where.”

This return to the memories of the wilderness wore away something of Chip’s cool reserve, and when the house was reached her eyes had grown tender.

“I shall be glad to see you often–as–as your folks will let you come,” she said, somewhat timidly when they parted; and scarce understanding this speech, Ray left her.

“Chip has changed a whole lot,” he said to his aunt a little later, “and I wish she hadn’t; she don’t seem the same any more.”

“I’m glad of it if she has,” answered Angie, smiling at him. “There was need enough of it.”