“Yes,” answered Jack—­“there is no one to take charge of the new battery but myself, and we have ten holes already filled for blasting.”

“But isn’t it only to put the two wires together?  Daddy explained it to me.”

“Yes—­but at just the right moment.  Half a minute too early might ruin weeks of work.  We have some supports to blow out.  Three charges are at their bases—­everything must go off together.”

“But it is such a short visit.”

Some note in her voice rang through Jack’s ears and down into his heart.  In all their intercourse—­and it had been a free and untrammelled one so far as their meetings and being together were concerned—­there was invariably a barrier which he could never pass, and one that he was always afraid to scale.  This time her face was toward him, the rosy light bathing her glorious hair and the round of her dimpled cheek.  For an instant a half-regretful smile quivered on her lips, and then faded as if some indrawn sigh had strangled it.

Jack’s heart gave a bound.

“Are you really sorry to have me go, Miss Ruth?” he asked, searching her eyes.

“Why should I not be?  Is not this better than Mrs. Hicks’s, and Aunt Felicia would love to have you stay—­she told me so at dinner.”

“But you, Miss Ruth?” He had moved a trifle closer—­so close that his eager fingers almost touched her own:  “Do you want me to stay?”

“Why, of course, we all want you to stay.  Uncle Peter has talked of nothing else for days.”

“But do you want me to stay, Miss Ruth?”

She lifted her head and looked him fearlessly in the eyes: 

“Yes, I do—­now that you will have it that way.  We are going to have a sleigh-ride to-morrow, and I know you would love the open country, it is so beautiful, and so is—­”

“Ruth!  Ruth! you dear child,” came a voice—­“are you two never coming in?—­the coffee is stone cold.”

“Yes, Aunt Felicia, right away.  Run, Mr. Breen—­” and she flew up the brick path.

For the second time Miss Felicia’s keen, kindly eyes scanned the young girl’s face, but only a laugh, the best and surest of masks, greeted her.

“He thinks it all lovely,” Ruth rippled out.  “Don’t you, Mr. Breen?”

“Lovely?  Why, it is the most wonderful place I ever saw; I could hardly believe my senses.  I am quite sure old Aunt Hannah is cooking behind that door—­” here he pointed to the kitchen—­“and that poor old Tom will come hobbling along in a minute with ’dat mis’ry’ in his back.  How in the world you ever did it, and what—­”

“And did you hear my frogs?” interrupted his hostess.

“Of course he didn’t, Felicia,” broke in Peter.  “What a question to ask a man!  Listen to the croakings of your miserable tadpoles with the prettiest girl in seven counties—­in seven States, for that matter—­sitting beside him!  Oh!—­you needn’t look, you. minx!  If he heard a single croak he ought to be ducked in the puddle—­and then packed off home soaking wet.”