was puzzling but significant and deterrent.  Next morning everybody who spoke to him called him by name, and as he rode up the river there was the look of recognition in every face he saw, for the news of him had gone ahead the night before.  At the mouth of Hawn Creek, in a bend of the river, he came upon a schoolhouse under a beech-tree on the side of a little hill; through the open door he saw, amidst the bent heads of the pupils, the figure of a young woman seated at a desk, and had he looked back when he turned up the creek he would have seen her at the window, gazing covertly after him with one hand against her heart.  For Mavis Hawn, too, had heard that Gray was come to the hills.  All morning she had been watching the open door-way, and yet when she saw him pass she went pale and had to throw her head up sharply to get her breath.  Her hands trembled, she rose and went to the window, and she did not realize what she was doing until she turned to meet the surprised and curious eyes of one of the larger girls, who, too, could see the passing stranger, and then the young school-mistress flushed violently and turned to her seat.  The girl was a Honeycutt, and more than once that long, restless afternoon Mavis met the same eyes searching her own and already looking mischief.  Slowly the long afternoon passed, school was dismissed, and Mavis, with the circuit rider’s old dog on guard at her heels, started slowly up the creek with her eyes fixed on every bend of the road she turned and on the crest of every little hill she climbed, watching for Gray to come back.  Once a horse that looked like the one he rode and glimpsed through the bushes far ahead made her heart beat violently and stopped her, poised for a leap into the bushes, but it was only little Aaron Honeycutt, who lifted his hat, flushed, and spoke gravely; and Mavis reached the old circuit rider’s gate, slipped around to the back porch and sat down, still in a tumult that she could not calm.  It was not long before she heard a clear shout of “hello” at the gate, and she clenched her chair with both hands, for the voice was Gray’s.  She heard the old woman go to the door, heard her speak her surprise and hearty welcome—­heard Gray’s approaching steps.

“Is Mavis here?” Gray asked.

“She ain’t got back from school.”

“Was that her school down there at the mouth of the creek?”

“Shore.”

“Well, I wish I had known that.”

Calmly and steadily then Mavis rose, and a moment later Gray saw her in the door and his own heart leaped at the rich, grave beauty of her.  Gravely she shook hands, gravely looked full into his eyes, without a question sat down with quiet hands folded in her lap, and it was the boy who was embarrassed and talked.  He would live with the superintendent on the spur just above and he would be a near neighbor.  His father was not well.  Marjorie was not going away again, but would stay at home that winter.  Mavis’s