Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/95

Rh faces of all who passed by. She scanned each one intently, closely, as if she were looking for a face she knew; her face wore the same expression of mingled perplexity and disapprobation which it had worn during the sermon. The longer John looked at her, the surer he felt that he understood the mental processes through which she was going.

"She 's fighting this thing out for herself, just as I did ten years ago," he thought. "She can't swallow it all down, and yet it bothers her to let it go. She 'll come out all right, though,—no fear about a woman with such eyes in her head as those."

It was half an hour before Miss Lane's friends returned. They came up laughing and chattering, and gathering around her, exclaimed:—

"Oh, Fanny! it was too bad to leave you so long. We got off farther in the woods than we meant to. Have you been awfully bored, dear, waiting?"

"Bored!" exclaimed Fanny Lane. "I was never farther from it in my life. This is one of the most interesting sights I ever saw. I can't in the least make it out."

"Make it out! What do you mean, Miss Lane?" cried young Herbert Wheelwright. "Does it strike you as a conundrum? I think it is a confounded bore myself, except for having you girls to take care of."

"Be quiet, Herbert," interrupted his sister;