She dared not speak to him while Miss Spooner held forth, and, indeed, she feared even to look at him, lest curious eyes read in her face what consciously she strove to conceal.

She realized his restless impatience under Miss Spooner’s eloquence.

“It was a week back already, we had our Columbus Celebration,” read this educator of Lancaster County, genteelly curving the little finger of each hand, as she held her address, which was esthetically tied with blue ribbon.  “It was an inspiring sight to see those one hundred enthusiastic and paterotic children marching two by two, led by their equally enthusiastic and paterotic teachers!  Forming a semicircle in the open air, the exercises were opened by a song, ‘O my Country,’ sung by clear—­r-r-ringing—­ childish voices....”

It was the last item on the program, and by mutual and silent consent, Tillie and Fairchilds, at the first stir of the audience, slipped out of the schoolhouse together.  Tillie’s father was in the audience, and so was Absalom.  But they had sat far forward, and Tillie hoped they had not seen her go out with the teacher.

“Let us hurry over to the woods, where we can be alone and undisturbed, and have a good talk!” proposed Fairchilds, his face showing the pleasure he felt in the meeting.

After a few minutes’ hurried walking, they were able to slacken their pace and stroll leisurely through the bleak winter forest.

“Tillie, Tillie!” he said, “why won’t you abandon this ‘carnal’ life you are leading, be restored to the approbation of the brethren, and come back to the hotel?  I am very lonely without you.”

Tillie could scarcely find her voice to answer, for the joy that filled her at his words—­a joy so full that she felt but a very faint pang at his reference to the ban under which she suffered.  She had thought his failure to speak to her at the “Celebration” had indicated indifference or forgetfulness.  But now that was all forgotten; every nerve in her body quivered with happiness.

He, however, at once interpreted her silence to mean that he had wounded her.  “Forgive me for speaking so lightly of what to you must be a sacred and serious matter.  God knows, my own experience —­which, as you say, was not unlike your own—­was sufficiently serious to me.  But somehow, I can’t take this seriously—­this matter of your pretty curls!”

“Sometimes I wonder whether you take any person or any thing, here, seriously,” she half smiled.  “You seem to me to be always mocking at us a little.”

“Mocking?  Not so bad as that.  And never at you, Tillie.”

“You were sneering at Miss Spooner, weren’t you?”

“Not at her; at Christopher Columbus—­though, up to the time of that celebration, I was always rather fond of the discoverer of America.  But now let us talk of you, Tillie.  Allow me to congratulate you!”

“What for?”