"I just got back this mornin'."
"Why, Gray wrote you left home several days ago."
"I did—but I stopped on the way to visit some kinfolks."
"Oh. Well, aren't you coming? I'm lonesome, and I guess you will be too—without Mavis."
"I won't have time to get lonesome."
The girl smiled.
"That's ungracious—but I want you to take the time."
The boy looked at her; since his trial he had hardly spoken to her, and had rarely seen her. Somehow he had come to regard his presence at Colonel Pendleton's the following Christmas night as but a generous impulse on their part that was to end then and there. He had kept away from Marjorie thereafter, and if he was not to keep away now, he must make matters very clear.
"Maybe your mother won't like it," he said gravely. "I'm a jail-bird."
"Don't, Jason," she said, shocked by his frankness; "you couldn't help that. I want you to come."