She'd been considerin' of it for some time, and last night she made up her mind.

But I did think," said Mrs.Blodgett, "that she'd have said good-bye to _you_." And not eliciting anything by way of a reply, she added: "Miss Havens is a nice girl.

I hate to think of her slavin' her life out in an office.

She'd ought to get married." "A girl has ever so many more chances in her home town," Peter offered hopefully.
"Yes, I suppose so." Mrs.Blodgett sighed.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Mr.Weatheral ?" "Nothing, thank you." He was lingering still on the landing on Mrs.
Blodgett's account, but he found his finger slipping between the leaves of the volume he had brought from the library.
"Ah," she warned him, "readin' is an improvin' occupation, but there's a book we hadn't any of us ought to miss, and that's the Book of Life, Mr.
Weatheral." And somehow with that ringing in his ears, Peter spent several minutes walking up and down in his room before he could settle to his book again.
II It was a week or ten days after Miss Havens left, before Peter went down to Bloombury for his midsummer vacation, a week in which he had the greatest difficulty in getting back to the House of the Shining Walls.
He set out for it almost immediately with a feeling akin to the release with which one returns to daily habit after the departure of an unexpected guest.