Perhaps any one might have looked with interest at her.  She was evidently young, but there was that in her face that put years, or at least experience of years, between her and the pretty young things that followed her.  She was largely made, and, carrying a dimpled child of two years upon her shoulder, she walked erect, as Southern women walk with their burdens on their heads.  It detracted little that her gown was of the coarsest, and that her abundant red hair was tossed by the child’s restless hands.  Eliza, as she entered the kitchen, was, if not a beautiful girl, a girl on the eve of splendid womanhood; and the young man, perceiving this almost faltered in his gaze, perhaps also in the purpose he was pursuing.  The words of the lesson he had ready seemed to be forgotten, although his outward composure did not fail him.

Eliza came near, the child upon her shoulder, looked at him and waited.

“Eliza will hear what you have to say,” said Mrs. Rexford.

“Oh,” said he, and then, whatever had been the cause of his momentary pause, he turned it off with the plea that he had not supposed this to be “the—­young lady who—­wished to learn about the stove.”

She received what he had to say without much appreciation, remarking that, with the exception of the one key, she had known it before.

As for him, he took up his cap to go.  “Good-day, ma’am,” he said; “I’m obliged for your hospitality.  Ladies, I beg leave now to retire.”  He made his bow elaborately, first to Mrs. Rexford, then in the direction of the girls.

“My card, ma’am,” he said, presenting Mrs. Rexford with the thing he mentioned.

Then he went out.

On the card was printed, “Cyril P. Harkness, M.D.S.”

It was growing so dark that Mrs. Rexford had to go to the window to read it.  As she did so, the young man’s shadow passed below the frosted pane as he made his way between snow-heaps to the main road.

CHAPTER XIV.

Next day Eliza went out with two of the little children.  It was in the early afternoon, and the sun shone brightly.  Eliza had an errand down the street, but every one knows that one does not progress very fast on an errand with a toddler of two years at one’s side.  Eliza sauntered, giving soothing answers to the little one’s treble remarks, and only occasionally exerting herself to keep the liveliness of her older charge in check.  Eliza liked the children and the sunshine and the road.  Her saunter was not an undignified one, nor did she neglect her duty in any particular; but all the while there was an undercurrent of greater activity in her mind, and the under-thoughts were occupied wholly and entirely with herself and her own interests.