"Oh! is it you, Janice dear?" she said, in a startled voice.
"And Mr. Haley. We are walking home from the Hammetts' sugaring."
"Well! I'm glad it ain't anybody else," said Miss 'Rill frankly. "But I do run around here sometimes of an evening, when mother's busy or asleep, just to listen to that old song. Mr. Drugg plays it with so much feelin'—don't you think so, Mr. Haley? And then—I was always very fond of that song."
They left her at the corner of High Street, and the flurried little woman hurried home.
"I do believe there is a romance there," whispered the teacher, when Miss 'Rill was out of earshot.
"So there is. Didn't you know that—years and years ago—she and Mr. Drugg were engaged?" cried Janice. "Why, yes, they were. But why they did not marry, and why he married the girl he did, and why Miss 'Rill kept on teaching school and never would look at any other man, is all a mystery."
"Romance!" commented Nelson, with a little laugh, yet looking down upon Janice with serious eyes. "The night is full of it—don't you think so, Janice?"
"No, no!" she laughed up at him. "It's only the moonlight," and a little later he left her at the old Day house with a casual handshake.