After Chip had run away from Greenvale, concealment of her name and all else had forced itself upon her. It was not natural for her to deceive. She had kept it up for one unhappy year only under inward protest, which ended in abject confession and tears. Now recalling that unpleasant episode, she made haste to confess her long conversation with this fluent fellow.

“Mr. Goodnow followed me over to the point this afternoon,” she explained that evening to Aunt Abby, “and talked for two hours. He was nice enough, but he made me sick of him, he flattered me so much.”

Aunt Abby looked at her with a slight sense of alarm.

“He certainly has the gift of impudence, at least,” she said, “in view of the way I declined his invitation yesterday. I think you’d best discontinue your long rambles for the present, or until he leaves here. He is not our sort. He is not even a friend of ours, and if people see you together, they will say unkind things.”That was warning enough for Chip, and from that time on she never even walked down to the village store except with Aunt Abby.

A curious and almost ridiculous espionage followed, however, for a week, and not a pleasant afternoon passed but this fellow was noticed strolling somewhere near the old mill or past the house.

Another amazing evidence of his intent was received a few days later, in the shape of a five-pound box of choicest candies, that came by express with his card. Aunt Abby opened this and saw the card, and the next day she commissioned the stage driver to deliver the box, card and all, to Mr. Goodnow at his boarding house.

A long and adroitly worded letter to Chip came a day later, so humble, so flattering, and so importuning that it made her laugh.

“I think that fellow must have gone crazy,” she said, handing the letter to Aunt Abby, “he runs on so about how he can’t sleep nights from thinking about me. He says that he must go away next week, and shall die if he can’t see me once more. What ails him, anyway?”

“Nothing, except evil intentions,” responded Aunt Abby, perusing the missive. “He must think you a fool to believe such bosh,” she added severely, after finishing it. “Honest love doesn’t grow like a mushroom in one night, and the difference between his position and yours gives the lie to all he says. I hope he will go away next week, and never come back.”

Whether Chip’s studied avoidance of him, combined with the snubbing, served its purpose, or he decided his quest was hopeless, could only be guessed, for he was seen no more near the mill, and the next week his yacht left Christmas Cove, and Chip felt relieved.

It had been an experience quite new to her, and, in spite of its annoyance, somewhat exciting. It also served another purpose of more value,–it recalled Ray to her by sheer force of contrast. She had felt hurt ever since the night she left Greenvale. She had meant to put him out of her thoughts and forget all the silly hours and promises at the lake; and yet she never had succeeded. Instead, her thoughts turned to him in spite of her pride.

And now, contrasting and comparing that honest, manly lad, a playmate only, and yet a lover as well, with this polished, fulsome, flattering, shifty-eyed fop, who sneered at everything good, only made Ray, with his far different ways, seem the more attractive.

Then conscience began to smite her. She had yielded to pride and put him away from her thoughts. His uncle had almost pleaded for her to return to Greenvale, if only for a visit. She knew Ray had spent weeks in searching for her; yet not once in all the two years since they parted had she sent him a line of remembrance.

More mature now, Chip began to see her own conduct as it was, and to realize that she had been both ungrateful and heartless; but she could not confess it to any one, not even Aunt Abby.

Chip’s life had been a strange, complex series of moods of peculiar effect, and her conduct must be judged accordingly.

First, the dense ignorance of years at Tim’s Place, with its saving grace of disgust at such surroundings and such a life. Then a few months with people so different and so kind that it seemed an entrance into heaven, to be followed by weeks of a growing realization that she was a nobody, and an outcast unfit for Greenvale.

And then came the climax of all this: the bitter sneers of Hannah, Ray’s cool neglect, the consciousness that she was only a dependent pauper, and then her flight into the world and away from all that stung her like so many whips.

But a revulsion of feeling was coming. Chip, no longer a simple child of the wilderness, was realizing her own needs and her own nature. Something broader and more satisfying than school life and the companionship of Aunt Abby was needed; yet how to find it never occurred to her.

With September came Aunt Abby’s annual visit to Peaceful Valley. A few days before their departure, Chip received a letter which was so unexpected and so vital to her feelings that it must be quoted.

It was dated at the little village of Grindstone, directed to Vera McGuire, care of Judson Walker, by whom it was forwarded to Christmas Cove.

How every word of this half-boyish, half-manly letter was read and re-read by Chip; how it woke the old memories of the wilderness and of herself, a ragged waif there; and how, somehow, in spite of pride and anger, a little thrill of happiness crept into her heart, needs no explanation.But she was not quite ready yet to forgive him, and what he failed to say when he might, still rankled in her feelings.

But Old Cy, that kindly soul, so like a father! Almost did she feel that to meet him would be worth more than to see any one else in the world. And to think he was still hunting for her, far and near!

And now, quite unlike most young ladies, who deem their love missives sacred, Chip showed hers to Aunt Abby.

“It’s from Raymond Stetson,” she said, rather bashfully, “a boy who was in the woods with those people who were kind to me, and we became very good friends.”

Aunt Abby smiled as she perused its contents.

“And so he was the cause of your running away from Greenvale,” she said. “Why didn’t you write him a note of thanks after you learned he had been searching for you? I think he deserved that much, at least.”

“I wouldn’t humble myself,” Chip answered spiritedly, “and then I was ashamed to let any one know I had used his name. I hadn’t time to think what name to give when Uncle Jud asked me, and his was the first that came to mind,” she added naÏvely.Aunt Abby laughed.

“I guess Master Stetson won’t find forgiveness hard to earn,” she said, and then her face beamed at the disclosure of a romance while she read the letter a second time.

But there was more to tell, as Aunt Abby knew full well, and now, bit by bit, she drew the story from Chip, even to the admission of the tender scenes between these two lovers, in which they promised to love each other and be married.

“It was silly, I suppose,” Chip continued blushingly, “but I didn’t know any better then, and I was so happy that I didn’t think about it at all. I never had a beau before, you see, and I guess I acted foolishly. Old Cy used to help us, too, and took us away so we could have a chance to hold hands and act silly. I was so lonesome, too, for Ray all that winter in Greenvale, and nobody knew it. I walked a mile to meet the stage every night for a month, to be the first to see him when he came. I guess he must have thought he owned me. I wouldn’t do it now.”

Once more Aunt Abby laughed, a good, hearty laugh, and then, much to Chip’s astonishment, she took her face in her hands and kissed it.

“You dear little goose,” she said, “and to think you ran away from a boy you cared for like that! I only hope he is good enough for you, for I can see what the outcome will be.”

That night when the tea-table had been cleared and the lamp lit, Aunt Abby once more began her adroit questioning of Chip; but this time it was of Old Cy, and all about him. For an hour, Chip, nothing loath, recited his praises, repeated his odd sayings, described his looks and ways and portrayed him as best she could, while Aunt Abby smiled content.

“It makes me feel young again to hear your story and about Cyrus,” she said when all was told. “I was just sixteen when he first came to see me. He was also my first beau, you know. I should judge he must have changed so I would never know him, and maybe he wouldn’t recognize me. Forty years is a long time!” And she sighed.

And now Aunt Abby closed her eyes, let fall her knitting, and lapsed into bygones.

No longer was she a staid and matronly widow–not young, it is true, yet not old, but with rounded face, few wrinkles, and slightly gray hair. Instead was she sweet Abby Grey of the long ago, and once more the belle of this quiet village and Bayport, and the leader at every dance, every husking, and every party. Once more she primped and curled her hair, and donned her best, and waited her sailor boy’s coming. Once more she heard the bells jingle and saw the stars twinkle as they sped away to a winter night’s dance–and once more she felt the sorrow of parting, the long years of waiting, waiting, waiting, and at last the numb despair and final conviction that never would her lover return.

And now he was still alive, though a wanderer, and some day he might–surely would come to see her, just once, if no more.

“Ah, me,” she said, rousing herself at last and looking at Chip’s smiling, sunny face, “life is a queer riddle, and we never know how to guess it.”

Then she sighed again.