IMPROBABILITIES
adventure—how should one of these chance upon a discovery unusual and heroic?
The scholar had come a step forward, and now tentatively lifted his voice. "Blanche?" he said.
She turned, startled from her dream, wavered in uncertain balance, and snatched at something to support herself. Carron grasped her outflung hand. It was warm and smooth, with a remarkable live feeling as of some captured little animal. It rested unconscious of what held it, preoccupied, intense. Whatever feeling possessed this girl seemed to possess her completely, head to heel. Her surprise at sight of her father had run into her finger-tips. "What is it?" she asked, leaning forward.
"Your mother says she is waiting for you to stitch the quilts," he explained, advancing. "I've been looking for you all over the hill."
"But why didn't she blow the horn? Why shouldshe send you? I don't believe she did," Blanche Rader objected mischievously to the scholar's diffident glance. "It is Mr. Carron who has waked you up and got you out." She lowered her eyes to the young man with a smile, realized her hand was still in his, smiled a little more with a faint nervous quiver at the corners of her mouth, and her fingers slipped from his. She slid from the well-curb before he could help her. "I'm sorry," she said, "I
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