His admiration for Kate deepened in proportion as the square of that young woman’s reserve increased.  She was not only the first woman who refused to burn incense at his shrine, but also the first who frankly admitted that she found him amusing.  She mildly guyed his accent, his manner of talking, his London clothes, his way of looking at things.  Never having lived near a university town, she escaped the traditional hero worship.  It was a new sensation for Sanderson, and eventually he succumbed to it.

“You know, Miss Kate,” he said one day, “you are positively the most refreshing girl I have ever met.  You don’t know how much I love you.”

Kate considered for a moment.  There was a hint of patronage, it seemed to her, in his compliment, that she did not care for.

“Oh, consider the debt cancelled, Mr. Sanderson.  You have not found my rustic simplicity any more refreshing than I have found your poster waistcoats.”

“Why do you persist is misunderstanding and hurting me?”

“I apologize to your waistcoats, Mr. Sanderson.  I have long considered them the substitute for your better nature.”

“Better natures and that sort of thing have rather gone out of style, haven’t they?”

“They are always out of style with people who never had them.”

“Is this quarreling, Kate, or making love?”

“Oh, let’s make it quarreling, Mr. Sanderson.  And now about that horse you lent me.  That’s a vile bit you’ve got on him.”  And the conversation turned to other things, as it always did when he tried to be sentimental with Kate.  Sometimes he thought it was not the girl, but her resistance, that he admired so much.

Things in the Bartlett household were getting a bit uneasy.  The Squire chafed that his cherished project of Kate and Dave’s marrying seemed no nearer realization now than it had been two years ago.

Dave’s equable temper vanished under the strain and uncertainty regarding Anna Moore’s silence and apparent indifference to him.  He would have believed her before all the world; her side of the story was the only version for him; but Anna did not see fit to break her silence.  When he would approach her on the subject she would only say: 

“Mr. David, your father employs me as a servant.  I try to do my work faithfully, but my past life concerns no one but myself.”

And Dave, fearing that she might leave them, if he continued to force his attentions on her, held his peace.  The thought of losing even the sight of her about the house wrung his heart.  He could not bear to contemplate the long winter days uncheered by her gentle presence.

It was nearly Thanksgiving.  The first snow had come and covered up everything that was bare and unsightly in the landscape with its beautiful mantle of white, and Anna, sitting by the window, dropped the stocking she was darning to press the bitter tears back to her eyes.