concerts or dances at night.  Kate did not dance, but she loved to see Nancy Ellen when she had a sufficiently tall, graceful partner; while, as she watched the young people and thought how innocent and happy they seemed, she asked her sister if they could not possibly arrange for Adam and Polly to go to Hartley a night or two a week that winter, and join the dancing class.  Nancy Ellen was frankly delighted, so Kate cautiously skirted the school question in such a manner that she soon had Nancy Ellen asking if it could not be arranged.  When that was decided, Nancy Ellen went to dance, while Kate stood on the veranda watching her.  The lights from the window fell strongly on Kate.  She was wearing her evening dress of smoky gray, soft fabric, over shining silk, with knots of dull blue velvet and gold lace here and there.  She had dressed her hair carefully; she appeared what she was, a splendid specimen of healthy, vigorous, clean womanhood.

“Pardon me, Mrs. Holt,” said a voice at her elbow, “but there’s only one head in this world like yours, so this, of course, must be you.”

Kate’s heart leaped and stood still.  She turned slowly, then held out her hand, smiling at John Jardine, but saying not a word.  He took her hand, and as he gripped it tightly he studied her frankly.

“Thank God for this!” he said, fervently.  “For years I’ve dreamed of you and hungered for the sight of your face; but you cut me off squarely, so I dared not intrude on you —­ only the Lord knows how delighted I am to see you here, looking like this.”

Kate smiled again.

“Come away,” he begged.  “Come out of this.  Come walk a little way with me, and tell me who you are, and how you are, and all the things I think of every day of my life, and now I must know.  It’s brigandage!  Come, or I shall carry you!”

“Pooh!  You couldn’t!” laughed Kate.  “Of course I’ll come!  And I don’t own a secret.  Ask anything you want to know.  How good it is to see you!  Your mother —?”

“At rest, years ago,” he said.  “She never forgave me for what I did, in the way I did it.  She said it would bring disaster, and she was right.  I thought it was not fair and honest not to let you know the worst.  I thought I was too old, and too busy, and too flourishing, to repair neglected years at that date, but believe me, Kate, you waked me up.  Try the hardest one you know, and if I can’t spell it, I’ll pay a thousand to your pet charity.”

Kate laughed spontaneously.  “Are you in earnest?” she asked.

“I am incomprehensibly, immeasurably in earnest,” he said, guiding her down a narrow path to a shrub-enclosed, railed-in platform, built on the steep side of a high hill, where they faced the moon-whitened waves, rolling softly in a dancing procession across the face of the great inland sea.  Here he found a seat.