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298 said Bessie cordially. “Come right through into the library, won’t you? The parlor seems rather cool.”

He followed her into the room, and they drew their chairs up to the fire, quite unconscious of the boy sleeping away so soundly just the other side of the screen. For some reason, the conversation did not run on very smoothly. Bess was listening with one ear to Mr. Muir, and straining the other to catch any sounds from above; and then, too, the young man’s uneasiness seemed to have extended itself to her, in a strange and uncomfortable fashion. They said all the approved things and in the approved way, but still there did not seem to be quite the easy, pleasant good-fellowship that had always existed between them. At length Mr. Muir rose and stood leaning on the mantel, looking down at Bess.

“Miss Carter,” he was beginning abruptly, and with a sort of effort, “I”—

At that moment a loud, sharp, determined bark was heard at the front door, just the bark to waken Fred, if he chanced to have fallen asleep. Bess sprang up.