In the days and weeks that followed (though nothing was said) I detected a subtle change in certain matters, however.  And as I look back at it now, I am sure I can trace its origin to my “affair” with Paul Mayhew.  Evidently Mother had no intention of running the risk of any more block-away courtships; also evidently she intended to know who my friends were.  At all events, the old Anderson mansion soon became the rendezvous of all the boys and girls of my acquaintance.  And such good times as we had, with Mother always one of us, and ever proposing something new and interesting!

And because boys—­not a boy, but boys—­were as free to come to the house as were girls, they soon seemed to me as commonplace and matter-of-course and free from sentimental interest as were the girls.

Again wise little mother!

But, of course, even this did not prevent my falling in love with some one older than myself, some one quite outside of my own circle of intimates.  Almost every girl in her teens at some time falls violently in love with some remote being almost old enough to be her father—­a being whom she endows with all the graces and perfections of her dream Adonis.  For, after all, it isn’t that she is in love with him, this man of flesh and blood before her; it is that she is in love with love.  A very different matter.

My especial attack of this kind came to me when I was barely eighteen, the spring I was being graduated from the Andersonville High School.  And the visible embodiment of my adoration was the head master, Mr. Harold Hartshorn, a handsome, clean-shaven, well-set-up man of (I should judge) thirty-five years of age, rather grave, a little stern, and very dignified.

But how I adored him!  How I hung upon his every word, his every glance!  How I maneuvered to win from him a few minutes’ conversation on a Latin verb or a French translation!  How I thrilled if he bestowed upon me one of his infrequent smiles!  How I grieved over his stern aloofness!

By the end of a month I had evolved this:  his stern aloofness meant that he had been disappointed in love; his melancholy was loneliness—­his heart was breaking.  How I longed to help, to heal, to cure!  How I thrilled at the thought of the love and companionship I could give him somewhere in a rose-embowered cottage far from the madding crowd! (He boarded at the Andersonville Hotel alone now.) What nobler career could I have than the blotting out of his stricken heart the memory of that faithless woman who had so wounded him and blighted his youth?  What, indeed?  If only he could see it as I saw it.  If only by some sign or token he could know of the warm love that was his but for the asking!  Could he not see that no longer need he pine alone and unappreciated in the Andersonville Hotel?  Why, in just a few weeks I was to be through school.  And then—­

On the night before commencement Mr. Harold Hartshorn ascended our front steps, rang the bell, and called for my father.  I knew because I was upstairs in my room over the front door; and I saw him come up the walk and heard him ask for Father.