She was suddenly awakened from her day-dreams by the sound of galloping. A horseman was approaching from the direction of the farm-house, and she hurried to the door to see who it could be. As he came near, she ran out joyfully to meet him. It was the colonel's son.
"They told me you were here," he cried, springing from his saddle. She could scarcely answer him for sheer happiness, and when he brought out her mount and they started away through the twilight, he leading the horses, she walked beside him silently.
He told her about his trip, his months at the preparatory school, his new friends, the wonders of the big city in which he had been living, hardly taking a breath in his excitement as his narrative swept along. Suddenly he became quiet and bent toward her anxiously, penitently.
"Go on," she urged; "it's fine!"
"But I've forgotten to ask you how you've been and what you've been doing. Or whether—next year—Of course I wish awfully that you could—"
He faltered, stopped. Then, after a moment, "But you're as brave as can be to just go right on at this school and let your teacher help you all she can. It'll all count, you'll find, when you start in studying some place else."
She laughed merrily. "You haven't heard," she said. Even in the dusk he could see that her face was beaming.
"Heard what?" he asked.
"That I've been going to school, but—not in the way you think."
He halted in the road. "What do you mean?"