A sense of embarrassment accompanied Dominie Graves to the breakfast table the next morning after the triumphant victory of Augusta Hall. He made no remark upon the disagreeable episode of the previous night, and ate silently amid the chatter of Babe and the monosyllabic answers of her mother. Teola to break the strain spoke of the sleigh-ride and dance coming off that evening.
"I fear it will be too cold," objected Mrs. Graves, in her fretful, weary voice.
"I can wrap up warmly," argued Teola. "All the girls in town are going and Dan will take care of me. We are going in separate sleighs to Slaterville. I'm going, mother, and that's all there is to it."
"It seems to me that you are growing rather friendly with that young Jordan, Teola," her father said. "He's been here every night for a week, hasn't he?"
Teola muttered sullenly that she wasn't the only girl in town who had callers, and looked pleadingly to Frederick for aid. The young student flashed her a smile.
"Teola will be perfectly safe to-night, father," he exclaimed.
"Are you going?"
"No," answered Frederick, "but sister would be no safer if I were. I have implicit confidencs in Dan Jordan and the country roads are perfect.... By the way, Dan would like to take a class of boys in the Sunday School. I told him to see you about it."
The mollified minister finished his meal without further comment.
* * * * * The sleigh-ride was a thing of the past. That it had brought disaster to Teola Graves showed in the tired eyes as they rested on the sky, gray with the coming morning. She had stolen silently into the house, reaching her chamber without disturbing either father or mother. At the window she halted. Here and there a star sparkled, dying dim in the advancing sky. Teola's eyes rested upon the street below for several minutes, then dragged her gaze upward and beyond--beyond to the long road that led to the yard of the dead which stretched over the hillside, rearing its monuments among the leafless trees, like sentinels over sleeping soldiers. There was something alluring, something compelling to the pale girl, watching the birth of her first real day of living. The University frowned down upon the graveyard; in its turn the graveyard frowned menacingly upon the town. A snow-bird peeped a "good-morning" to its mate in the Rectory eaves. A bell pealed out twice, striking the air with its sonorous sound reverberating into the hills. And still the girl stood waiting for--she knew not what.