The evening pa.s.sed away with songs, games, and recitations, and it was nearly eleven o'clock when the young people began to wander off toward home in pairs. Albert and Maud were among the first of the young folks to bid the rest good-night.

The night was clear and keen but perfectly still, and the young people, arm in arm, walked slowly homeward under the bare maples, in delicious companionship. Albert held Maud's arm close to his side.

"Are you cold?" he asked, in a low voice.

"No, thank you; the night is lovely," she replied; then added, with a sigh, "I don't like sociables so well as I used to--they tire me out."

"We stayed too long."

"It wasn't that; I'm getting so they seem kind o' silly."

"Well, I feel a little that way myself," he confessed.

"But there is so little to see here in Tyre at any time--no music, no theatres. I like theatres, don't you?"

"I can't go half enough."

"But nothing worth seeing ever comes into these little towns--and then we're all so poor, anyway."

The lamp, turned low, was emitting a terrible odor as they entered the sitting-room.

"My goodness! it's almost twelve o'clock! Good-night!" She held out her hand.

"Good-night!" he said, taking it, and giving it a cordial pressure which she remembered long.

"Good-night!" she repeated, softly, going up the stairs.

Hartley, who came in a few minutes later, found his partner sitting thoughtfully by the fire, with his coat and shoes off, evidently in deep abstraction.

"Well, I got away at last--much as ever. Great scheme, that sociable, eh? I saw your little girl introducing you right and left."

"Say, Hartley, I wish you'd leave her out of this thing; I don't like the way you speak of her when--"

"Phew! You don't? Oh, all right! I'm mum as an oyster--only keep it up!

Get into all the church sociables you can; there's nothing like it."

Hartley soon had canva.s.sers out along the country roads, and was working every house in town. The campaign promised to lengthen into a month--perhaps longer. Albert especially became a great favorite. Every one declared there had never been such book agents in the town. "They're such gentlemanly fellows. They don't press anybody to buy. They don't rush about and 'poke their noses where they're not wanted.' They are more like merchants with books to sell." The only person who failed to see the attraction in them was Ed Brann, who was popularly supposed to be engaged to Maud. He grew daily more sullen and repellent, toward Albert noticeably so.

One evening about six, after coming in from a long walk about town, Albert entered his room without lighting his lamp, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep. He had been out late the night before with Maud at a party, and slumber came almost instantly.

Maud came in shortly, hearing no response to her knock, and after hanging some towels on the rack went out without seeing the sleeper. In the sitting-room she met Ed Brann. He was a stalwart young man with curling black hair, and a heavy face at its best, but set and sullen now. His first words held a menace:

"Say, Maud, I want t' talk to you."

"Very well; what is it, Ed?" replied the girl, quietly.

"I want to know how often you're going to be out till twelve o'clock with this book agent?"

Perhaps it was the derisive inflection on "book agent" that woke Albert.

Brann's tone was brutal--more brutal even than his words, and the girl turned pale and her breath quickened.

"Why, Ed, what's the matter?"

"Matter is just this: you ain't got any business goin' around with that feller with my ring on your finger, that's all." He ended with an unmistakable threat in his voice.

"Very well," said the girl, after a pause, curiously quiet; "then I won't; here's your ring."

The man's bl.u.s.ter disappeared instantly. Bert could tell by the change in his voice, which was incredibly great, as he pleaded:

"Oh, don't do that, Maud; I didn't mean to say that; I was mad--I'm sorry."

"I'm _glad_ you did it _now_, so I can know you. Take your ring, Ed; I never 'll wear it again."

Albert had heard all this, but he did not know how the girl looked as she faced the man. In the silence which followed she scornfully pa.s.sed him and went out into the kitchen. Brann went out and did not return at supper.

Young people of this sort are not self-a.n.a.lysts, and Maud did not examine closely into causes. She was astonished to find herself more indignant than grieved. She broke into an angry wail as she went to her mother's bosom:

"Mother! mother!"

"Why, what's the matter, Maudie? Tell me. There, there! don't cry, pet!

Who's been hurtin' my poor little bird?"

"Ed has; he said--he said--"

"There, there! poor child! Have you been quarrelling again? Never mind; it'll come out all right."

"No, it won't--not the way you mean," the girl declared. "I've given him back his ring, and I'll never wear it again."

The mother could not understand with what wounding brutality the man's tone had fallen upon the girl's spirit, and Maud could not explain sufficiently to justify herself. Mrs. Welsh consoled herself with the idea that it was only a lover's quarrel--one of the little jars sure to come when two natures are settling together--and that all would be mended in a day or two.

Albert, being no more of a self-a.n.a.lyst than Maud, simply said, "Served him right," and dwelt no more upon it for the time.

At supper, however, he was extravagantly gay, and to himself unaccountably so. He joked Troutt till Maud begged him to stop, and after the rest had gone he remained seated at the table, enjoying the indignant color in her face and the flash of her infrequent smile, which it was such a pleasure to provoke. He volunteered to help wash the dishes.

"Thank you, but I'm afraid you'd be more bother than help," she replied.

"Thank _you_, but you don't know me. I ain't so green as I look by no manner o' means. I've been doing my own housekeeping for four terms."

"I know all about that," laughed the girl. "You young men rooming do precious little cooking and no dish-washing at all."

"That's a base calumny! I made it a point to wash every dish in the house, except the spider, once a week; had a regular cleaning-up day."

"And about the spider?"

"I wiped that out nicely with a newspaper every time I wanted to use it."

"Oh, horrors!--Mother, listen to that!"