“O, no, the Connecticut schoolmaster had to come and make a home for her.”

Marjorie wondered what right he had to be so disagreeable to her, and why should he find fault with her mother and her uncle, and what right had he to say that her grandfather was poor and that some of his land had once been water?

“Hollis shan’t grow up and marry a city girl if I can help it,” he growled, half good-naturedly.

Hollis laughed; he thought he was already grown up, and he did admire “city girls” with their pretty finished manners and little ready speeches.

Marjorie wished Hollis would begin to talk about something pleasant; there were two miles further to ride, and would Captain Rheid talk all the way?

If she could only have an errand somewhere and make an excuse to get out!  But the Captain’s next words relieved her perplexity; “I can’t take you all the way, Sis, I have to branch off another road to see a man about helping me with the hay.  I would have let Hollis go to mill, but I couldn’t trust him with these horses.”

Hollis fidgeted on his seat; he had asked his father when they set out to let him take the lines, but he had replied ungraciously that as long as he had hands he preferred to hold the reins.

Hollis had laughed and retorted:  “I believe that, father.”

“Shall I get out now?” asked Marjorie, eagerly.  “I like to walk.  I expected to walk home.”

“No; wait till we come to the turn.”

The horses were walking slowly up the hill; Marjorie made dents in the bag of flour, in the bag of indian meal, and in the bag of wheat bran, and studied Hollis’ back.  The new navy-blue suit was handsome and stylish, and the back of his brown head with its thick waves of brownish hair was handsome also—­handsome and familiar; but the navy-blue suit was not familiar, and the eyes that just then turned and looked at her were not familiar either.  Marjorie could get on delightfully with souls, but bodies were something that came between her soul and their soul; the flesh, like a veil, hid herself and hid the other soul that she wanted to be at home with.  She could have written to the Hollis she remembered many things that she could not utter to the Hollis that she saw today.  Marjorie could not define this shrinking, of course.

“Hollis has to go back in a day or two,” Captain Rheid announced; “he spent part of his vacation in the country with Uncle Jack before he came home.  Boys nowadays don’t think of their fathers and mothers.”

Hollis wondered if he thought of his mother and father when he ran away from them those fourteen years:  he wished that his father had never revealed that episode in his early life.  He did not miss it that he did not love his father, but he would have given more than a little if he might respect him.  He knew Marjorie would not believe that he did not think about his mother.

“I wonder if your father will work at his trade next winter,” continued Captain Rheid.