Early Candlelight. Maud Hart Lovelace

to tea, Mrs. Boles?” asked Jasper, rising.

      Hetty Frenshaw jumped up, too. “I shan’t stay, either. I clean forgot I’d left baby alone.”

      Eva moved quietly to straighten the wick of a candle. “I’ll wait tea for you then, Major Boles.”

      But Mrs. Frenshaw did not return at once to her baby. Jasper, fastening his snowshoes outside, saw her eager dart into the Smythe quarters. It made him uneasy. Uneasiness for Eva weighted the unhappiness which crowded down upon him as he and Mowrie wound their shawls closer and faced the stinging cold which had come with the dark.

      After that evening Jasper went less often to the Boles’. He played euchre with Mowrie, and treated Eva pleasantly when they met.

      Every night the watchman called to the star-filled sky and the snowy immensities of prairie, “All’s well around.” But things were far from well with Jasper Page.