session of it, and nailed it up against our brick chimney, and scratched under it, in chalk, 'Cow-boy Charley.' (His name is Charles, you know.) I often fancy how some poor girl, who has doubtless spooned and mooned over it no end, would be shocked to see it with its present surroundings and legend."
When he looked at Stella's face, he was surprised to see that she was not laughing. The emotion his story had aroused in her was something very far removed from mirth.
"How do you know it ever belonged to a lady?" she asked.
"I don't know it, but I have confidence in the correctness of the conjecture. Hobart used to be perfectly deadly to the ladies, and might be still if he wanted to; but he gave up flirtation several years ago, for some reason. I have never found out what it was. I am sure if the ladies were as kind to me as they invariably are to him I'd not forsake their standard."
When Stella and Bertrand reached the house, she left the latter on the porch with the two gentlemen who had arrived first, and went in to see if her services were desired by Mrs. Gray. The boys, who had gone home directly after Sunday-school, had brought the intelligence of the strangers' presence at church, and Mrs. Gray had foreseen their being asked to dinner, and was busy making things ready for them, for such servants as were procurable in that region were not to be left for a moment without watching. Hobart, it happened, was so situated in his seat on the porch that he could see along the passage upon which the dining-room opened, and as he talked with Dr. Gray and Bertrand he furtively kept his eye upon this passage, in and out of which Stella was flitting. There was no other word to describe the girl's light-stepping, free, unconscious motions, and her simple dress, with its full short skirt, seemed the one of all others suited to her.
When the gentlemen were presently summoned in to dinner, Hobart took some pains to get himself placed beside Stella, but it seemed to be understood that her seat was always between two of the boys, and he found himself compelled to give it up. His next thought was to be seated opposite her, and this he managed to effect. As he watched her during the meal, it became evident that her manner toward him had altered slightly. She was perceptibly less stately, and did not seem now to avoid his gaze, and all this suggested to Hobart that perhaps she had taken more seriously than he could have supposed the fact of her having shown her childish fondness for him; and now that he had succeeded in concealing from her his real understanding of the matter and putting it on other grounds, he resolved not to refer to it again.
