The Heart of Arethusa (part 2)

"I don't wonder!" Arethusa's own admiration was wholly undisguised by now. "He's the handsomest man I ever saw!" she added recklessly.

"He's handsome enough, I reckon, but he knows it almost too well. And he just hates himself!"

"That's a horrid thing to say about anybody; I don't believe it at all! And how on earth could he help knowing he's good-looking if he ever looks in the mirror! There's no harm in knowing you're good-looking if you are!"

The subject of this discussion looked far more as those charming gentlemen pictured in the advertising sections of our various current magazines to show the superiority of certain brands of collars and other necessary articles of manly garb were intended to look than the artists have ever been able to make the pictures. He was superbly tall and broad of shoulder; in every way he fulfilled the most exacting requirements of what a Hero should be. No dream of a Prince Charming could have formed a being half so well-fitted for the role as this living Reality.

He wore his faultless dress clothes as if they had been a veritable part of him, not something donned for the few hours of this evening. And he had gold-tipped eyelashes every bit as long as Arethusa's own (she could tell that they were even so far away as she sat from him), and the most irresistible of smiles. He smiled with commendable frequency. Perhaps he knew that his rows of teeth were as perfect as ordinary human teeth could very well be, and that this superlative smile was in consequence no trifling addition to his other attractions of person. He had a little trick of flinging his head back when he laughed aloud, that showed to still greater advantage all of these wonderful teeth, and his eyelashes, and even called attention to the perfect straightness of his handsome nose.

He laughed for Arethusa's benefit as she watched him, and she smiled in sympathy for such a charming laugh, although she was so far across the room from him she could have no idea why he laughed.

And then she gazed and gazed at him, unashamed; a tiny sigh fluttered through her parted red lips.

"I wish I could meet Him!"

"That's perfectly simple," remarked Mr. Watts. "Introductions haven't gone out yet, as I have heard." His tone was scornful, but it was all lost on Arethusa.

"Could you introduce me?" eagerly.

"I might, if really urged." Then he added, half to himself, "It's a regular slaughter of the innocents whenever Grid Bennet goes to a debutante party. He ought to be barred from 'em by law."

"I think you're jealous of him," said Arethusa reprovingly.

"I haven't a thing to be jealous of him about, and just to prove it, here goes."

And as the Party was all beginning to rise from the tables, Mr. Watts headed straight for Mr. Bennet. He was a trifle disgusted with Arethusa for this display of enthusiasm over Gridley Bennet. His type did not appeal to Mr. Watts very much.

But it certainly did to Arethusa.

A nearer view of Mr. Bennet showed him to her as even handsomer than she had thought at a distance. The Introduction was a Momentous Affair, far more of a Real Event than any introduction in which Arethusa had ever participated. Mr. Bennet's manner of bending over her hand in his acknowledgment of it called loudly for satin knee breeches and lace ruffles, silver buckled shoon and a decorative sword, as the most appropriate accompaniments. It was delightfully suggestive, to the thrilled Arethusa, of the pages of her favorite novels of those days when ladies' hands were kissed in public.

"Grid's squshy manner would get him anywhere he wanted with the skirts, even if he didn't have the looks to back it up," commented Mr. Watts, with inward dryness, of the meeting.

"I've been watching you for some time, Miss Worthington," was Mr. Bennet's flattering opening to the conversation, "and I was planning an introduction to you just as soon as dinner was over."

Now he very probably had not noticed her at all until Billy Watts had him face to face with her, but he could no more help saying such things than he could help his breathing. He was built just that way.

But Arethusa found no reason to doubt the sincerity of these charming words. And his little way of looking at her and of leaning toward her as he talked, were a perfect corollary, seeming to single her out from among all these hundred or more feminine beings in the vast room as the one whose company he most ardently desired. "These other stupid folks do not exist for me at present," proclaimed his manner, "and I am just where I most want to be."

Her heart fluttered painfully. She could only stand there at first, silently flushing and paling by turns, at a loss for the words of a reply that should suitably acknowledge such a marvelous greeting of her insignificant self. Then the music started up in the ball room at the other end of the hall, and she moved away with all the rest of the Party toward the sound, at Mr. Bennet's side, still quite unable to find her generally so-ready tongue.

"Shall we dance?" asked Mr. Bennet courteously, as they walked. His voice was another of his distinct attractions, rather deep and with the slightest possible drawl.

Arethusa paused just under the broad arch of the ball-room doorway, and so Mr. Bennet paused also, to watch the dancers for a moment, all of them bending and turning and twisting to a tune of such impelling rhythm that it would have made a wooden-legged man almost to attempt the impossible, and then to curse his fate; then she lifted troubled eyes to Mr. Bennet.

"But I don't dance what they're dancing."

"Oh, yes, you do, I'm sure," with the intimation in his tone that she was sure to be the very best dancer on the floor. "It's only the one-step."

Arethusa could not help but laugh.

"Well, it certainly doesn't look anything like the one-step that I know! You see, Mr. Bennet, I've never been to any Parties. Timothy just taught me some down in our barn." She was beginning to feel a little less awed by his magnificence as a Man, for he was, after all, human, and quite inclined to be kind.

"Then let me give you another lesson, now.... Do, please. You won't really need it as a lesson though, I know."

Still she hesitated. Yet her feet unconsciously kept time to the gay music as she stood, just watching.

"Surely you won't confer a favor on this Timothy person you'd deny to me," and Arethusa was quite convinced there was a wee tinge of reproachful jealousy in Mr. Bennet's attractive voice. "I may not prove to be so good a teacher as he is, but I shall certainly do my best."

Arethusa laughed again; with real merriment this time.

The very idea of Timothy as a better teacher of anything than this Wonderful Mr. Bennet!

The picture of herself in those blue print dresses she wore around the Farm and Timothy in khaki trousers and blue flannel shirt, hopping about on the barn floor (which, though clean-swept and smooth, was hardly meant for dancing) to tunes which were hummed and whistled by each alternately, rose before her; and she compared it in its utter inferiority with this picture of herself in this Heavenly Green Frock and Mr. Bennet in his Perfect Evening Clothes, the shining floor which stretched away from them, and the lilt of the band music which went to her head like wine.

She shook her head. "But suppose I should fall down or something. This floor looks so dreadfully slick and hard to stand up on. I wouldn't mind a bit if I was awkward with Timothy. But...."

"I'm getting rather jealous of Timothy, I'm afraid," said Mr. Bennet. "Miss Worthington, you couldn't be awkward if you tried. And you won't fall down, I can promise to take care of that. Please give me this great pleasure."

So Arethusa allowed herself to be thus charmingly persuaded.

But it must be confessed that their start was a bit awkward.

Arethusa was horribly self-conscious, and not at all sure, despite his reassurance, that she was going to manage this new venture. After a few moments, however, and his low-spoken command to let herself be guided, her natural-born instinct to dance asserted itself, the self-consciousness wore away, and she was one-stepping with the best of any on that floor.

She was more certainly meant for a dancer. She was as light as a feather, for all her height, and like a piece of thistledown she swayed and circled about the room in perfect time to the music. She seemed to feel instinctively the beat of the measures, and her flying feet obeyed Mr. Bennet's guidance, as if he and she had danced together all of their lives. Mr. Bennet himself was a truly wonderful exponent of the art. He danced with a grace and ease that few men ever attain, and he had an arm of sureness at his partner's back that took her safely through that crowded room without a single bump or mishap. Had Arethusa but known it, there was no one at the Party who could so well have conducted her in her first real effort of this kind as Mr. Bennet.

It was over much too soon to please her. She could have gone on for hours, just like that without a pause, and without once tiring.

"Why, you dance beautifully!" exclaimed Mr. Bennet, when the music stopped. "I verily believe," very softly, "that you were fibbing when you said you had danced so little!"

She looked up at him shyly, from under her long lashes, and blushed just a bit. "That was you. I couldn't have danced with anyone else that way. Timothy doesn't dance at all like that!"

Now this was the rankest ingratitude on Arethusa's part. For had it not been for Timothy's surreptitious lessons, so kindly and willingly given, she would never have experienced the intense pleasure of this one-step with Mr. Bennet. But Arethusa was honestly surprised at her own swallow-like ability to keep time to music that was played instead of whistled.

Then Mr. Harrison caught sight of her and rushed across the room to claim her. He had been hunting everywhere for her, he declared.

Then Mr. Watts came in his turn, and inquired saucily, as he "broke in," if she had found Mr. Bennet as charming as he looked. But she laughed at him merrily, for his friendly teasing. She was too happy to be offended at anything.

And she laughed and chatted away with these two oldest acquaintances her most enthusiastic and Arethusa-like self; with every one introduced to her she had just as Wonderful a Time. There were a great many who asked to be introduced to her, for her shining eyes and her very evident enjoyment of everything she did made her an object of interest to nearly everybody who observed her. Arethusa was really one of the belles of the evening; such unreserved happiness as hers is bound to attract. Consequently, the Party fulfilled her most sanguine expectations as to what a Party should be, although she did not know how large was her own personal share in this fulfillment.

She entirely forgot that she had ever prepared a Topic of Conversation for the Occasion; she made no other mention of moths and butterflies; not once did she quote a line of Poetry. Her words poured forth in as mad a rush, as gaily inconsequential, as the words of the most hardened Party-goer who has ever been an assistance to her hostess in adding to the enjoyment of her fellow guests. Without making any conscious effort to do so, Arethusa followed Mr. Watts' kindly advice, and his words as to the result proved delightfully true.

The terpsichorean attempts which she made during the evening without Mr. Bennet's able guidance, might have been managed with a little more gratifying success, had not her eyes been so prone to follow him in his whirling about the room, wherever she could, as he honored other ladies with his attentions. But when she did miss step, or stumbled, her apologies were so pretty, and she was so sincere in her confused regrets, that it could make no difference to any one with his heart in the right place.

Yet Mr. Bennet came back to Arethusa herself quite often to ask for dances—a truly flattering number of times—for it was a kindly fate that had given her that lightness of foot and her undeniable grace. Then too, Mr. Bennet, like Mr. Watts, knew Ross rather well, and he wanted to be nice to Ross's daughter for various reasons. And last, but not least, her ingenuous admiration of his own attractive person amused Mr. Bennet more than he had been amused for a long while.

There was one last wild romp of a dance as an encore from the more good-natured members of the orchestra, while the other musicians packed their instruments, and then the First Real Party was only a thing to be remembered.

Mr. Bennet made a special point of telling Arethusa good-night, and he bent lingeringly over her hand as he did so, in his own inimitable way of making it seem the very hardest parting he had ever had to make.

"I'm coming to see you some time, if I may," he said.

Her heart almost stopped beating at this. Then it raced on again to beat in quick, little jumps. She lifted young, frankly adoring eyes to the handsome man before her, and quite suddenly, without a word of real warning, Arethusa knew....

She had fallen in love!

But it was not as she had fallen in love with Elinor, and it was not such love as she gave Ross or Miss Asenath or even Timothy; for this was without doubt the Miracle she had read about so many times under the hollow tree in Miss Asenath's Woods. And it had come just as she had always dreamed it would come, with a Hand-clasp and a Glance.

The hand in Mr. Bennet's holding trembled and grew cold before Arethusa could withdraw it. Her misbehaving heart almost interfered with her breathing. But the world around them went on as casually unaware of the Miracle as if neither Arethusa nor Mr. Bennet existed, when it should surely have been hushed into a Startled Silence by What had happened.

All through that night, Arethusa wandered with a tall man of long-lashed hazel eyes of marvelous beauty, through a country which was a Country of Rare Delight, even if only a Country of Dreaming. And as they wandered, he bent his head again and again to whisper, in a deep drawling voice, Words which bore a remarkable resemblance to some of the lyrics of the early nineteenth-century poets, and the pages of conversation in Arethusa's much read romances.

What though the Gentleman of the Dream wore a modern suit of commonplace evening clothes, instead of Ruffles and a Velvet Coat and Satin Small-clothes? It did not prevent, in the Dream, his pressing his Hand to his Heart at moments when it was logical that he should have done so, nor did it rob his Voice of the Proper Passionate Inflection. Nor did it keep the cardiac region of the Arethusa of the Dream from fluttering in an altogether delightful way.

CHAPTER XVII

Ross took Arethusa out to the Country Club for a round of golf the next afternoon, and as it was the first and only time she had ever spied a golf club, it is not at all difficult to imagine what sort of game she played. It deserved a name all of its own; and her method of holding her club would have brought tears to the eyes of any true devotee of the sport. But from the standpoint of pure enjoyment for the two most intimately concerned, the occasion was a great success.

"I don't believe I care very much for golf," she remarked decidedly, after she had almost dug a trench around her ball on the second tee, "and I believe you move that ball, Father, when I'm not looking with my stick up over my head."

Ross protested his innocence, and insisted that she try once more. So she did. But when she missed it this time also, she was firm in her resolve to quit.

"You do move it, Father!" she repeated. "I just know you do! To tease me! Because, why shouldn't my stick come down in the right place when I know exactly where it is when I start to hit it, if you don't push it away?"

"Because of one of the cardinal rules of the game, my dear, 'Keep your eye on the ball.' You are demonstrating its truth of that aphorism every time you take your eye off."

"But how can I?" retorted Arethusa. "I've only got two eyes. How can I watch my ball and my stick and where I'm going to knock it, and everything, when they won't look but one way at once? I'm not cross-eyed!"

Ross gave it up as beyond his powers of reasoning.

So Arethusa put her driver back in the bag and announced that she would do the caddying. But as conversation is one of the things most unnecessary to a caddy, she could hardly be said to approach perfection in this rôle, either, though as Ross, very fortunately, did not take his golf with any too much seriousness, they got along in fine shape. Arethusa was outspoken in her loyal admiration of each one of his shots, and when he made one drive of two hundred yards and over, her proud delight was manifest all over the course.

She had not even begun to exhaust the dinner-dance and the Wonderful Mr. Bennet as congenial topics of conversation, although the breakfast-table and the luncheon-table had heard much of both, so she continued to find a great deal to say about them as they walked,—especially about Mr. Bennet, upon which subject she enlarged to Ross's amusement. But Arethusa did not consider that his replies to her raptures were suitably enthusiastic.

"Now don't you really think he's good-looking, Father?"

"Undoubtedly so, my dear."

"I think," Arethusa's expression was dreamy, and her eyes were far away, apparently on the hazy skyline, "I think that he looks just like a Prince!"

It spoiled Ross's drive from the seventh tee completely. He sliced far over into the tall grass, and as she had not been watching as a caddy should, they had to go on without ever finding the ball.

While they were on the fourteenth fairway it began to rain in hard pelting drops, a fulfillment of the morning's promise of a heavy gray sky. Arethusa was in her element then, and as there was no Miss Eliza to drag her in by the power of her will, to all of Ross's entreaties that they seek shelter with more haste, she turned a deaf and unheeding ear. He was far more of a hot-house plant than his daughter, so he caught a violent cold from his drenching in the chilly fall rain, which made itself promptly known with much sneezing before he had gone to bed that night.

Arethusa was thoroughly conscience-stricken when he was unable to get up the next morning. She felt personally responsible for his aches and pains and his fever. It was her duty, she decided, as the contributing cause of it all, to nurse and amuse him. She refused to budge from his side for the next several days, indefatigable in her attentions. She read aloud to him, jumping up from her chair with almost every turning of a page to plump up his pillows with zeal, and to demand if he wanted anything. Arethusa was hardly a gentle nurse, even if a conscientious one. She fetched him veritable gallons of ice-water, and carried up his meals with her own fair hands. And while he dozed, at intervals through the days, she stayed near him, dreaming of Mr. Bennet. Ross accepted all of this solicitude with a lazy nonchalance, not in the least averse to being fussed over.

All of Sunday afternoon, Arethusa watched anxiously for Mr. Bennet. Had he not said that he was coming to call?

But he did not come, although Mr. Harrison and Billy Watts and several other acquaintances made at the Party did. She denied herself to all of these visitors. How could she leave her sick father for such as they?

By Wednesday afternoon, however, Ross was undeniably better. Even Arethusa could see that he was, in spite of the fact that he continued to complain. But it was such complaining as only too plainly indicated that he was loth to relinquish any of this delightful attention he was receiving. So when George announced a caller who had asked for "Miss Worthington," Elinor, who had just that moment come back from down-town with those two new and widely advertised detective stories for Ross's amusement which he had earlier in the day expressed a desire to see, said that she would begin the reading aloud in Arethusa's place, and that Arethusa must receive the visitor.

"And you'll like Candace Warren, I think. She's rather a dear girl. I suppose she came to see you because I know her mother so well. It was very kind of her." To Elinor's rose-colored view of youth, all young girls were attractive because of what they were.

"I think it was perfectly lovely!" chanted Arethusa happily.

She would certainly see Miss Warren, come to call on a stranger in her city, just because of her mother's friendship for Elinor! There was a warm little glow in her heart at the thought of the kindness shown her by so many people for the sake of Ross and Elinor; the Chestnuts, and Mr. Watts, innumerable others at the dinner-dance, and now Miss Warren!

"I'll send George in with tea a little later on," said Elinor, "if you would like to have it."

Then Arethusa's face clouded somewhat, "But I wanted to have supper up here again!"

"Not supper, Arethusa, it's just afternoon tea. I thought perhaps it might help you to get acquainted."

That was very different. It might be great fun to have afternoon tea. She had read about it, and it had always sounded most delightful in the reading.

"But Aunt 'Liza says I can't pour anything," she added doubtfully. "She never lets me at home. She says my fingers are all thumbs."

George could pour it for her, if she wished.

And so with these trifling details arranged, and the tea a settled prospect, Arethusa went in search of Miss Warren.

She ran gaily down the wide front steps, humming a little tune, and skipped into the small reception room at the side of the hall, both hands cordially outstretched.

"I think it was perfectly dear of you to come to see me!" she exclaimed.

Miss Warren rose politely from the spindle-legged sofa where she had been sitting, and touched one of the outstretched hands with rather extraordinary limpness. She murmured something altogether indistinguishable.

Arethusa's cordiality felt somewhat thrown back upon herself. She sat down abruptly in the nearest chair. Miss Warren resumed her place on the sofa. There was a long silence, while the visitor covertly studied her hostess, and the hostess openly observed the details of her visitor's appearance with the frankest interest.

Arethusa thought Miss Warren was very pretty. She had coal black hair, although very little of it showed from under her hat, bright black eyes, and a wonderfully white skin with a great deal of color in her lips and cheeks.

But it was her clothes that really most intensely interested the clothes-loving Arethusa.

For Miss Warren was exceedingly well-dressed in garments that could but excite admiration. She wore silky furs as black as her hair, soft and long and smoothly shining. Arethusa had a childish longing to stroke them. Miss Warren's suit was made of a marvelous sort of stuff unlike any material Arethusa had ever seen, dark wine in color, and it spelled "Paris" in every well-cut line. The blouse she wore was a superlative affair of lace and delicacy and tracings of fine embroidery. It could never have been called a "shirtwaist," as Arethusa's plain garments of the same shape with their simple rows of tucking were named. From one daintily gloved hand she dangled a gold purse, and several other small articles of the same metal of an unknown variety.

Arethusa's glance traveled downward, still admiring, and there it paused. For it was hard in the first glimpse to determine just where Miss Warren's feet could be, in those long narrow shoes, with the ends just like pointed pencils. It did not seem possible that human toes, of the number of five, could fit into one of those shoes. Arethusa looked suddenly at her own feet, and as Miss Warren's eyes were at that moment upon them also, they seemed to Arethusa to appear very large, and very awkward to have as feet, in her comfortable house slippers with the broad, round toes. She tucked them as far under her chair as she could, and felt a little hot. Miss Eliza had selected those slippers, as a special privilege of an extra pair of shoes for the Visit. But they were a half-size larger than Arethusa ordinarily wore, because they had been the only pair obtainable at Tobin's, in Blue Spring. She had never minded this fact before, but by contrast with Miss Warren's so slim foot-covering they looked really dreadful.

Arethusa found it quite impossible to admire Miss Warren's hat, although liking everything else she wore so much. It was much too small to conform to Arethusa's ideas of beauty in a hat, and it came so close down over the visitor's delicate eyebrows, that it seemed impossible that she could have much of that black hair tucked underneath it. Arethusa began to feel a trifle better, minding the difference in feet and the house-slippers a little less, as she remembered her own glorious mop of redness; which, although so undesirable in color, could never have been squeezed into so small a space as that hat represented.

"I think it was perfectly dear of you to come to see me," said Arethusa for the second time.

But the words elicited very little more response than they had when first spoken.

Miss Warren seemed to be glad that Arethusa should feel as she did about her coming to call, but there was no real animation in her gladness.

The hostess cast around for sentiments, which if uttered, might loosen her visitor's tongue, but the visitor fortunately loosened it of her own accord.

"Do you like Lewisburg, Miss Worthington? Is this your first visit here?"

"Yes, and I just love it!" declared Arethusa, "Everybody is perfectly darling to me! I went to a dinner-dance the other night and had the Most Heavenly Time! Mrs. Chestnut's it was, at the Hotel. Were you there?"

Miss Warren had not been invited, she was sorry to say. She volunteered the information that she was a second-year girl, and that she believed that very few of them had been asked.

While her information as to the cause of it shed very little light, Arethusa was exceedingly regretful that her visitor had missed such a Wonderful Party. She described it in detail for the one so unfortunately deprived of first-hand enjoyment of the Heavenly Affair, bringing Mr. Bennet into the narrative.

Did Miss Warren, by any chance, know Mr. Bennet?

Miss Warren did.

Arethusa waxed more eloquent upon so moving a theme.

But Miss Warren had not added that Mr. Bennet had recently been devoting quite a little of his valuable time and attention to herself, and that there was very little of Mr. Bennet's charm that Arethusa could mention which she did not already know. One of the reasons she had called so promptly when her mother suggested a visit to Mr. Worthington's daughter was because she had been informed that Mr. Bennet had "rushed" the visiting lady at the Chestnut's dinner-dance, and so a very natural curiosity as to the personality of the visiting lady craved gratification as soon as possible.

Mr. Bennet as a subject was exhausted before very long, for Miss Warren was so very unresponsive that it was hard to continue the discussion of him in just the way it had started. Arethusa felt a shyness descending upon her at the cold reception of her enthusiasm for the Wonderful Being who had so recently come into her life. Rhapsodies are well-nigh impossible unless the mood of the listener answers in some small degree.

So the conversation languished once more.

Miss Warren languidly dangled her gold purse and stared through the lace curtains of the window nearest her. It was gloriously autumnal as to weather this afternoon, and the world was gay to the vision. The trees were bright with their rapidly turning Joseph's coat of foliage, and the sunlight streamed like liquid gold. Overhead, the sky was the very clearest of bright blues. Lenox Avenue was unusually full of those who had been tempted out to revel in it; babies and nurses strolled past on the sidewalk, and loaded automobiles sped by in a sort of procession in the street.

Arethusa's regard was largely for the outside also. It was such a day as she adored. Then, feeling it was quite beyond her power to sit so unsociably so close to anyone in the same room, when it was so glorious a world they were both viewing, she turned back to Miss Warren with a friendly little smile.

"It's a perfectly beautiful day, isn't it?"

Miss Warren seemed to thaw a trifle. "It's just gorgeous outside!"

"I like fall better than spring, always," replied Arethusa, "and especially when it's like this."

"Yes," agreed Miss Warren.

The silence descended once more, to be first broken by Miss Warren with the polite inquiry, "Do you play bridge, Miss Worthington?"

Arethusa's surprised gray eyes were removed from the window to which they had returned with the silence, to be fixed on Miss Warren.

"Do I what?" she exclaimed.

"Play bridge."

Miss Warren made this contribution to conversation for no other reason than that it had a strong personal appeal. And from her point of view, it had more possibilities as a theme for development than had the weather; the silence had grown almost oppressive.

Arethusa laughed gaily. She had played a game called "London Bridge" when she was quite small, she and Timothy and the little darkies from the washer-woman's cabin, and they had all liked it very much as a game; but they had never thought of calling it just "bridge."

"I used to play London Bridge when I was little, but of course I don't now."

"I meant cards," explained the visitor with a well-bred smile. "I'm perfectly mad about it. Though some people do like auction better, I never have."

Her smile had nettled her hostess. It had a calm superiority about it that was rather trying. "No," she replied, shortly. "No, I don't know anything about it, or that other thing either. Aunt 'Liza says playing cards are wicked."

The delicate black eyebrows of the visitor lifted a little.

"It's too bad if you don't play. There're so many bridge parties given here. And," she added, "Mr. Bennet plays a beautiful game."

Arethusa decided that Miss Warren was not nearly so pretty as she had at first considered her.

At this critical juncture, George made his entrance with the tea-tray. Arethusa remembered she was a hostess and had a guest. She enquired if the guest would care for some tea.

The guest would be delighted to have some tea. She was famished, she added.

But Arethusa made no reply to this sally. She had not yet forgiven that last remark about Mr. Bennet's ability as a bridge-player.

While the tea and its attendant sandwiches were consumed almost in silence, Arethusa did some thinking. When in Rome do as the Romans do is an excellent old saw, and although Miss Eliza's views on the subject of games played with a deck of cards were firm and had been expressed so as not to be mistaken, Arethusa was meditating open defiance. If the Wonderful Mr. Bennet played bridge, then she, Arethusa, would learn the game, Miss Eliza or no Miss Eliza.

Over her last sandwich, she eyed Miss Warren.

"Is it very hard to learn?"

"What?"

"That.... That card game you called 'bridge'?"

Miss Warren laughed with softness. Arethusa was really rather amusing.

"Why, not at all, I think, for some people. Would you care to learn? I'd be delighted to teach you myself, sometime. Mr. Bennet says I play a very good game."

Arethusa choked on her sandwich.

"I don't think I shall bother you," she said, pointedly; "Mr. Bennet would show me, if I asked him, I reckon."

Once more Miss Warren's well-bred and superior smile shone forth to arouse resentment. "I think if I were you, Miss Worthington, that I would ask some one else first, because," very kindly, "Gridley Bennet is a perfect old maid about his game. It bores him almost to tears to play with a poor player or a beginner. I've heard him say so more than once. And men just simply hate that sort of thing when they do hate it, you know."

The air with which Miss Warren called the Wonderful Mr. Bennet by his Christian name was galling. It bespoke a degree of intimacy with his charming self from which Arethusa felt herself far removed. And her manner of stating his likes and dislikes was that of one who knew. Arethusa boiled over.

"I didn't ask your advice!" she exploded. "And when I want any of it, I'll let you know!"

Miss Warren looked surprised.

"Why, I...." she began, and then she decided that it was time to leave. She could not quarrel with Arethusa, and Arethusa looked very ready to quarrel.

As Miss Warren made her way gracefully homeward along the avenue, she decided that she really had nothing to fear from Mr. Bennet's casual attentions to the visiting lady at parties. She was countrified and queer, and her clothes were awful. Miss Warren knew Mr. Bennet to be a gentleman of taste. Yet she was glad she had made the call, for she had rather enjoyed it. It would be fun to tell Gladys, friend nearest her heart, all about it.

Arethusa went up the stairs about three at a time, and burst into Ross's room like a small whirlwind, cheeks glowing and hands still clenched in righteous anger at Miss Warren.

"Well, well," exclaimed Ross, "what has happened? Did not the fair Candace come up to expectations?"

"I thought you said she was a dear girl!" Arethusa looked accusingly at Elinor.

"And isn't she?" asked Ross mischievously.

"She's ... she's a cat!" said Arethusa with emphasis. "She said perfectly awful things to me, and she was as nasty as could be to me about Mr. Bennet!"

"So that is where the shoe pinches! Elinor, dearest, methinks there is one of your friends' daughters who has no sort of attraction for our daughter. But Arethusa, my child, I told you, when you first mentioned his name, that he was in a class apart. I told you that he was no lonely floweret wasting his sweetness on the desert air, and that the competition where you would compete was keen. I told you...."

"Ross, for heaven's sake!" laughed Elinor.

"Arethusa is only finding out the truth of my words," replied Ross seriously. "She will learn to depend on her father with one or two more experiences of this kind."

Arethusa perched herself on the arm of Ross's big chair, and Ross tweaked at her ear affectionately. "Is that not so, mine own daughter?"

Arethusa disregarded this question, and asked one of her own.

"Could I learn bridge, do you reckon?"

Ross jumped. "Shades of Miss Eliza!"

"But could I?" recklessly; "Miss Warren said Mr. Bennet played a beautiful game and she said it was cards and that he was fond of it."

"I see. I've heard that he did. Well, something will have to be done about this. Myself, being the sort of player from whom the bridge world runs as one man cannot help you much. But Elinor might. She is said to be somewhat proficient at it. We'll give Arethusa a bridge-party, how about it, Belovedest?"

Elinor agreed, and so Ross suggested a lesson right away.

And Arethusa was just starting off to fetch some cards and have George bring what Elinor spoke of a "card-table," when George himself knocked at the door to announce that Miss Arethusa was wanted on the telephone.

"Mr. Bennet wishes to speak to her."

Bridge lessons were forgotten as if they had never been heard of. Every vestige of color left Arethusa's face. Her hands clasped tightly over her suddenly tumultuous heart.

"To.... To me, George? To me," she stammered; "are you real sure he said to me?"

George nodded, smiling. "He said, 'Miss Worthington,' very plain, Miss Arethusa."

Then the deepest of red flamed back into her checks and she scuttled off down the hall so fast that she upset every single rug in her path.

Mr. Bennett was Waiting at the telephone!

CHAPTER XVIII

Arethusa's trembling fingers could hardly find the telephone receiver at first, and even when once located, they could scarcely keep it to her ear.

"Hello!" her greeting was soft and almost breathless.

"Hello!" And she recognized the deep drawl immediately. "Is this Miss Worthington at the 'phone?"

"Yes, it's me, all right!" Arethusa was too excited to be quite grammatical. "But I've been running to get here, and I've lost my breath!"

At the other end of the line, Mr. Bennet smiled rather broadly, and his stenographer, just then depositing a pile of letters to be signed on his desk, could not help wondering what the young lady had said that was so funny. Mr. Bennet did not often smile so into a mere telephone.

"Well, this is Gridley Bennet talking."

"I knew it was!" happily.

"And I should like to know if you have any engagement for to-morrow night?"

"Oh, Mr. Bennet!"

"Have you?"

"Of course, I haven't!" Arethusa considered it a foregone conclusion that if he wanted her for anything, she was free.

"Then will you go to see the 'Earl and His Girl' with me?"

"What is that?"

"A musical comedy, and quite a good one, I've heard them say."

"Is.... Is it the Theater?"

"Why.... Yes! Certainly!" This surprised him just a bit.

"Oh, Mr. Bennet!" exclaimed Arethusa once more.

"I take it, then, you'll go with me?"

"You just bet! I should just love it! Why, I've never been to the Theater in all my life! Not even to the Opera House in Hawesville!" Hawesville was the county-seat.

Mr. Bennet laughed outright then. He had been smiling right straight through this conversation, to the deep interest of his blonde stenographer, who smiled herself in sympathy for the laugh. She took a frank pride in Mr. Bennet's popularity, his many invitations and his telephone calls. It was something to be stenographer to the very handsomest man in the fourteen-story building without his being one of the very nicest to work for, as well.

"That surely makes it all the better," said Mr. Bennet, "and I'll call for you about eight." Then he added, being what he was, "I was rather afraid I wasn't going to be allowed this great pleasure; I was sure one of those many youths that surrounded you the other evening had been before me."

"Well, they haven't. And I'm awfully glad they weren't, because I would so much rather go with you."

It was only the truth which Arethusa spoke, just as she had been taught it was best to do on every occasion.

Mr. Bennet was still smiling when he hung up the receiver and turned to the blonde stenographer. "Please get me two seats for to-morrow night at the Masonic, Miss Ford. You'd better telephone first to see what they have, and then you can go after them." He looked up at the tall clock between the office windows. "And you needn't come back any more to-night, unless you yourself have something to do," he added kindly, "because these letters were all, and I can mail them. Just bring the tickets with you to-morrow."

Miss Ford, with a beaming face, sat down to telephone for the seats which were to introduce Arethusa to the world of the theater, while Mr. Bennet busied himself with the signing of his letters.

It was a kindly Providence that spared Arethusa the loss of life or limb on her way back to impart this Marvelous piece of news, for such a plunge across slippery floors was never made before. Ross and Elinor seemed quite as excited over it as she could have wished, and had a very proper appreciation of the Signal Honor paid their daughter by the Princely-looking Mr. Bennet, although Ross was rather regretful that he had not realized before that she had never attended the theater. He would have taken her himself.

Elinor's most immediate concern was for the costume, and after due deliberation of Arethusa's slender wardrobe, it was decided a purchase must be made for this Occasion.

The next day was the longest that Arethusa had ever spent, in spite of all that had to be done toward getting ready for the theater expedition. The hands of the little silver clock on her mantel seemed to Arethusa to be afflicted with a sort of palsy, during the last hours of that day. She consulted them with frequency, but they never seemed to move forward enough to be noticeable. And deeming something to have happened to the clock, for surely time could not creep so slowly by, she was ready and waiting for Mr. Bennet long before the stroke of eight.

On this visit to Miss Rosa, she had produced a Dress of the soft colors of the tinted autumn leaves, shading into almost the color of the bronzy hair of the girl who was to wear it. It was made with soft skirt on top of soft skirt, in these tones, of shimmering chiffon. It was as Wonderful a Frock in its way as the Green Frock itself. Arethusa fairly held her breath with delight when she saw it. And as it was such a very Momentous Occasion, far too momentous for anything borrowed to be worn, Elinor purchased her daughter, to wear with this dress, a cloak of soft velvet in deep olive green with a collar of fluffy brown fur that framed her glowing face in the most fascinating way possible.

So Mr. Bennet could not help but approve her appearance as he handed her into the automobile. He liked those ladies he escorted to festivities to do him credit. He was as much addicted to a liking for feminine loveliness as was ever Mr. Harrison. For Mr. Bennet had looked in the mirror often, and being a person of discernment, had liked what he had seen there; and he had a deep and abiding sense of the fitness of things. Had the gods been less kind to Arethusa in the matter of looks, undoubtedly her adoration of Mr. Bennet must have remained of a distance. But even a more carping critic than her escort could have found no fault with her this evening; from the crown of her ruddy head to the soles of her satin slippered feet, she was joy to the eye.

The theater lobby was full when they arrived, of a good-natured crowd that laughed and chatted and greeted its acquaintances gayly as it moved slowly toward the inside entrance; where the women whose bare necks gleamed white in their settings of silks and velvets and furs, with their dress-suited men folks, were separated, like the sheep from the goats, for the downstairs of the theater, from the more plainly attired who climbed balconyward. Mr. Bennet and his lady belonged unmistakably with the sheep.

It would be a good house, judging from this number waiting to get inside. It was the first night of a much heralded show, "with the original New York company," its advance notices had said; and it had called forth what the morning newspapers of Lewisburg delighted to call a "representative audience."

Arethusa recognized, among the many, one or two faces she had seen to know at the dinner-dance, and so she could nod and smile a greeting or so, as she and Mr. Bennet pushed forward, with the rest of that crowd. But the people around her pressed against her so closely, that all unknown to Mr. Bennet, she timidly grasped the skirt of his overcoat and gripped it tightly for an anchor should they be forced apart. It was a fearful thought. What on earth would she do, if she lost him in that swarm of folks?

But once in the more open space inside, she breathed more easily, and could lose her hold, for separation was no longer to be really feared.

She looked about her then, as Mr. Bennet divested himself of that anchoring overcoat, and they waited for an usher, and, Arethusa-like, was deeply impressed with all that her eyes rested upon; the glittering crystal chandeliers that gleamed like hundreds of diamonds high above her, the distorted pair of cupids, unnaturally fat, who swayed from garlands of stiff flowers over the proscenium arch, the badly anatomized ladies on the ceiling, riding impossible blue clouds; the gorgeousness of many gilded columns, and even the bright red plush of the seats. Arethusa's tastes were ever slightly rococo.

They were barely seated when the curtain rose, to a fanfare of sound more deafening than musical, and she gave a long drawn out and delighted, "O ... Oh!" for a really pleasing riot of color was before her.

The advertising of this musical show had not so very far falsified its attractions. There was plenty of action in the piece, much trotting on and off the stage; a great many songs with an exceedingly active chorus doing its best, and the dancing was unusually good. It had a big company of principals, well costumed; and such music as was offered was almost music.

But Mr. Bennet gave up all pretense of watching the performance after a little while and devoted his attention entirely to Arethusa, for he had never seen anyone before who so personified enjoyment. Her eyes, great, deep pools of darkness, were glued immovably to the scene before her. A soft flush came and went in her cheeks. She clutched the programme that had been given her at the door tightly in one hand. She had made no move to open it. She had no time to waste on programmes. Once, at a very exciting moment, when the villain was eavesdropping within a hand's distance of the handsome Earl of the piece, she grabbed Mr. Bennet's arm and squeezed it painfully, almost totally unaware whose arm it was.

Then the curtain went down with a grand flourish to a long roll from the snare drum. It went up again, an encore to much applause, then down; then up and down swiftly several times. Arethusa clapped a great split right through the middle of her brand new gloves. The curtain descended once more, and this time.... It stayed. The lights in the theater flashed on.

It had seemed all too short a period of pleasure. Arethusa sighed as she rose and reached behind her for her Green Cloak.

"I wish," she said, regretfully, "I wish it had lasted longer!"

"Lasted longer!" exclaimed Mr. Bennet, "Why!..."

"Isn't it over?" she almost shrieked.

"Over! Good gracious, child! That was only the first act! I believe there are two more, before it's over."

"Two more! Oh! Goody!" Arethusa plumped herself down again with such solid decision to stay where she was, that had her seat not been strongly made, she might have gone clear through it. "But I saw men going out! And I thought of course that was all! It did seem awfully short, though!"

That there should be two whole more acts; such richness of prospect!

The curtain rose for the second act, and Arethusa's smile began to widen in glad anticipation. Then it faded, and her expression changed to that of one rather bewildered. She looked all about her, but no one else seemed at all affected as she was herself. Everybody in the audience was gazing intently, and with pleasure, at the stage.

"What's the matter?" inquired Mr. Bennet.

Arethusa nodded towards the frolicking chorus girls who were just immediately back of the foot-lights, all with arms out-stretched to their responsive audience, singing vociferously of unintelligible words.

"It's.... It's the girls."

"Yes...."

"They.... They have on pa ... pajamas." She stumbled a little over the word.

"Yes...." encouraged Mr. Bennet once more.

"They must have been resting," replied Arethusa.

"Resting?"

"Pa ... pajamas are bedclothes," she explained, blushing just a bit.

"Yes, I know," said Mr. Bennet kindly, "but I don't just see...." He glanced back at the stage.

"I reckon they put them on to rest between the acts," continued Arethusa, "because they must have been tired, after dancing so hard, and the curtain must have gone up so quick they didn't have time to change. They must be awfully embarrassed to come out before us like that. I think it's mean to laugh at them. I wouldn't laugh for anything myself."

The picture conjured up by this speech of Arethusa's, of the chorus girls changing wildly to pajamas and reclining after the arduous labors of the first act, tickled Mr. Bennet more than anything that had happened on the stage, even the best efforts of the expensive comedian. And the effect upon him of the idea was the very same effect that the idea of moths and butterflies as a Topic of Conversation for Parties had had upon Mr. Watts, when Arethusa had presented it to him at the dinner-dance.

Mr. Bennet laughed.

His laughter was much more refined and less boisterous than that of Mr. William Watts, but Arethusa realized, nevertheless, that he was laughing at her. He was not laughing at the chorus girls who had been caught unawares by a rising curtain, in garments in which they had not intended that they should be seen; but he was laughing at her, Arethusa. Whatever it was she had said this time that was wrong, she had made herself ridiculous enough for the Wonderful Mr. Bennet to laugh at her!

Her throat filled suddenly with a perfectly solid lump. Something back of her eyes began to smart unbearably, and they filled also, filled quickly with tears that so blinded her that she could not see even her own shimmering lap. Her hands trembled unmanageably, until the programme dropped from their uncertain grasp, and she fumbled about to find that handkerchief which was so badly needed. She dabbed at her eyes with it, and winked back those tears as best she could, biting her lips fiercely to keep from sobbing outright. But there were so many tears and they came so fast that they brimmed clear over, and some fell, great shining drops, on the yellow chiffon of her dress. Her tiny handkerchief was all unavailing to quench this flow, and in a very short while it was only a small lump of wet. Her head drooped lower and lower.

It was absolute and overwhelming humiliation.

Mr. Bennet heard a queer little sound at his side, a little sound that she was quite unable to control, and he turned to see this weeping Arethusa.

"Why, my dear little girl!" he exclaimed, bending over. "What on earth!"

She managed to swallow a small portion of the lump that filled her throat. "You.... You laughed at me!" she said brokenly. "You laughed at me!"

So he had. But Mr. Bennet was very sure that this was not the time to acknowledge it.

He was genuinely distressed to see her cry, but his interest was more acute that something be done to stop it before too much attention was accorded them. Mr. Bennet disliked very much to be made at all conspicuous.

He slid one arm gently along the back of her seat. Arethusa was conscious of this movement through her unhappiness, and she could not help being thrilled at the thought of that Wonderful Arm being where it was. Mr. Bennet, however, knew very well just how far it might go. Miss Eliza herself thought no more of the proprieties than did Mr. Bennet. Then he leaned protectingly close. Arethusa thrilled some more.

"Did you imagine for a moment that I was laughing at you!" And his rich drawling voice was so convincing that she believed him immediately. "Indeed, I was not! There was something very funny just then that you missed. Why, I wouldn't laugh at you for all the world!"

Arethusa smiled through her tears at him like a veritable bit of April.

"I didn't like to think you would. But.... But.... It seemed just exactly like you were!"

"You misjudged me dreadfully!"

And this time he sounded so reproachful that she was just as ashamed of herself for so misjudging him, as she had been humiliated the moment before because she had thought herself the object of his mirth.

"I ... I'm sorry," she faltered. Would Mr. Bennet ever be able to forgive such a misinterpretation of his charming laugh?

But Mr. Bennet was a truly magnanimous soul, and it seemed that he would.

So an atmosphere of enjoyment once more restored, Arethusa turned her attention back to the chorus ladies, who had in the meantime clothed themselves in garments belonging less to the hours of rest and more to those of activity, and responded to their antics to amuse as she had before that most unfortunate episode.

She sighed a gusty sigh of real forlornness when the curtain had descended in such a way that it could not possibly be construed by even inexperienced theatergoers to mean anything but that it was all over.

"It doesn't last near long enough, not near!" she said, regretfully, as she was being helped into the Green Cloak.

Mr. Bennet produced his watch. "I don't know just how long you expected it to last," he replied, "but right this moment it happens to be ten minutes past eleven; which means that we have been here almost three hours!"

Arethusa regarded him open-eyed and open-mouthed.

"Honest!"

"Honest."

"Why, it hasn't seemed like any time at all!"

"Well, it seems to me that if you enjoyed it so much, we'll have to come again some time very soon. Shall we?"

Arethusa accepted this invitation with undoubted pleasure.

"I'll be a little more careful, though, in my selection of our next play, so there will be nothing in it you could misunderstand that might possibly spoil a few moments for us. I don't want any spoiled moments with you," tenderly.

Arethusa blushed deeply and her head drooped.

She had spoiled it, all by herself; those moments of unhappiness had been all her own fault, because she was such a goose. This play had been as near perfection as a play could be, thought she, who knew so little of plays. At the next one, she herself would see that nothing of the kind occurred. She had learned her lesson, and there would be no more misinterpretation of Mr. Bennet's charming little ways.

Mr. Bennet was just a bit conscience-stricken in the morning by the way he had turned that episode, when reviewing it at his office. She was a dear child. The Worthington interest was a solid one. There were dollars galore that stood to that name in various financial institutions, and when one is a dealer in the commodities known as stocks and bonds, one must not let the smallest chance slip by to cement a friendship outside which might prove to extend itself into the business world. There was no telling how quickly bread cast upon the waters might return. At least, it could do no sort of harm. She was a dear child!

Which explains why Arethusa received a long green box, brought to her by George as she ate her luncheon. It was a box of American Beauties with stems a yard long, roses that were far too beautiful as roses to be real, and that seemed to Arethusa to have gathered all the perfume of heaven within their deep, red centers. She sniffed and smelled them in ecstasy; and stroked the glossy green leaves that spread out from their stems, so marvelous as leaves. She could hardly part with them that they might be put in the tallest vase on the library table, which would display their beauty to the greatest advantage.

Inside the box was a tiny note....

"Would Miss Worthington do Mr. Bennet the honor of reserving the date of the January Cotillion for him?"

"But that's so awfully far off," objected Arethusa, as she read this communication aloud to her interested parents. "It's only the first of November right now!"

It was entirely too lovely of Mr. Bennet to send her roses; it heaped coals of fire with effective vengeance. She was almost ashamed to accept them. But she did wish that he had made that engagement for something a trifle closer at hand.

"You little goose!" exclaimed Ross. "Why, that is the event of the whole Lewisburg season! And not one debutante in ten out of a winter ever gets to go! As superlative as I'll have to admit Mr. Bennet's taste in flowers, I believe most girls would care far more about that invitation than they would about the roses!"

"Really!" Arethusa brightened up considerably.

"I'd let a man laugh at me every day from now till Christmas if he'd ask me to go to the January Cotillion with him," continued Ross, "that is, if I was a young lady with any hope of being a social success."

"But he wasn't laughing at me," protested his daughter. She had narrated the affair in detail. "I told you that, Father. He said very positively he wasn't laughing at me!"

"Well," replied Ross, "it makes no difference what caused his mirth, it seems to me that I'd assuredly welcome it, with such effect!"

CHAPTER XIX

Arethusa was going shopping, and going shopping for the very first time in her life, alone.

And thereby hangs a tale.

Wednesday coming was Miss Asenath's birthday, and Arethusa had completely lost track of that important fact to forget it until this Monday morning. She, who had given Miss Asenath something, if only a tight bouquet of flowers from the plants brought into the house for the winter, every birthday anniversary since she was old enough to lisp "birfday" and comprehend its significance, had forgotten that this event was so near. She could have made her a gift as she generally did had there been time to finish it and send it so it would reach the Farm on the twentieth; but it would not be a birthday gift if Miss Asenath did not get it on her birthday (this was logic to Arethusa); so in her distress she had appealed to Elinor.

And Elinor, after asking if Miss Asenath ever wore shawls and learning that she did all the winter through, suggested that Arethusa purchase her a rose-colored shoulder shawl of silk and several yards of rose-colored ribbon to match for the locket. If it was started today, it would reach there in time.

Charming Idea!

So Arethusa was to take the automobile, as Elinor had a Board meeting of importance this morning and could not go with her; seek the magnificent establishment where she had accompanied her mother so many times to shop; inquire of a floor-walker the location of the department of shawls; purchase one of the same, and charge it to Elinor's name and address; and return home in the machine. Such were the directions given by Elinor.

They seemed to cover every detail for the buying of Miss Asenath's birthday gift; and, moreover, sounded very simple. As viewed by Arethusa, although Miss Eliza would have been horrified at the bare suggestion, she could surely buy one rose-colored silk shawl without assistance.

She loved her reflection in the mirror when she was dressed for this adventure; a jaunty new hat with a flyaway feather, a new suit, and even gloves and shoes as slim as Miss Warren's. And besides, pride of her heart, her costume was enhanced with furs of rich, dark brown, as silky smooth in appearance as those she had envied that visitor who had been so trying a visitor. There was also, a half-formed Hope within that when she looked so well as she did this morning she would meet the Wonderful Mr. Bennet somewhere downtown that made her eyes shine, which added to the attractiveness of the reflection.

She left the car in front of the big shop and bade Clay wait for her with an air of dignity that was an almost ludicrous imitation of Elinor's manner of uttering the same words. Clay smiled broadly as he touched his cap, recognizing her model.

Arethusa tripped gayly into the store and a polite and obsequious gentleman escorted her to that counter where she might find shawls, and directed that she be waited upon, immediately.

The very prettiest girl among those in this department stepped forward. She was the one which Arethusa might have chosen to wait upon her, had she been choosing. But she was a dreadfully tired-looking girl, even more tired looking than pretty, Arethusa noticed when she was closer. She had great dark circles under her eyes and a pathetic sort of droop to the corners of her mouth. Her black dress made her look still more forlorn, for she was very pale and it accentuated the pallor.

But the girl smiled at Arethusa; she could not help it, tired as she looked and really was, for Arethusa's eagerness to purchase was so amusingly apparent.

"I want to see silk shawls," announced Arethusa, "rose-colored silk shawls."

A bewildering variety of shawls was immediately spread before her, in every conceivable shade of the color she had requested. How Miss Asenath would have loved that heap of gayety! Arethusa found it terribly difficult to make a choice. She picked out three as the prettiest of the collection, after much deliberation and selection and rejection; but each one was so lovely that she wanted every one of them for Miss Asenath. Then she made an appeal to the girl.

"Which of these do you think is the very prettiest? It's for an old lady; the dearest old lady!"

The girl bent her dark head over the shawls Arethusa was holding.

"Is it for your grandmother?"

"No," replied Arethusa. "It's for my Aunt 'Senath. She's an invalid."

Then, of necessity almost, she must tell Miss Asenath's interesting story, beginning way back at the very beginning, with the Romance before the Fall. Her sympathetic telling of her Tale, her gestures and her earnest voice, attracted every other girl at that counter, for it was not a very busy morning, so that long before she had finished, four or five other heads were bent in solemn consultation above the three shawls from which final choice was to be made. They could not all agree as to the one most desirable; tastes were different as to which shade of rose would really be most becoming and best for Miss Asenath. Finally, Arethusa and Jessie (for so the first girl's name had been discovered to be) decided that majority must rule as always, and selected as Miss Asenath's birthday gift what they themselves and two of the other girls liked best, the one that was in between in tone.

"I can get ribbon just this color, can't I?" asked the shopper anxiously, once her choice was actually made.

"For the locket?" inquired Jessie.

"Yes."

"Sure you can. Suppose you just take this over to the ribbon counter and match it right now, it's just in the next aisle, and then you can bring it back to me."

Arethusa went away joyfully, bearing the shawl.

"Ain't you afraid, Jess, to let her go off like that?" asked one of Jessie's contemporaries, of a more distrustful turn of mind. "'Sposin' she don't come back with it? It ain't paid for, and she never told you who she was."

"Oh, she'll come back," replied Jessie, confidently, "She'll come back, all right. I ain't the least bit afraid. 'Specially when she looks as much like an angel as she talks! I wish there was more like her to wait on, and then it wouldn't be so hard to be standing here all day long. Yes, ma'am, these shawls are all silk," to a personage who had paused to examine the wares which Jessie had not yet put away.

It would be impossible to mention her in any way save as a "personage." She exuded superiority and a consciousness of a high station in life from every aristocratic pore.

"I doubt it. They look rather cheap." She tossed the whole heap aside, contemptuously. "Have you nothing any better?"

"No, ma'am, these are the best."

"That's old Mrs. Bixby," whispered one of the clerks in a tone of heartfelt awe to the girl next her, as the lady seated herself before the counter. "And she is some swell, too, believe me, Molly Davis! Money! Just buckets of it!"

Mrs. Bixby seemed rather disdainful of what Jessie had to offer her in the way of shawls. She continued to toss them to right and left, scattering them so carelessly about that one or two fell to the floor of the aisle and were retrieved by a near-by floor-walker, who glanced at poor Jessie, as much as to say, "Don't you let that happen again!"

"I see nothing here I'd really have," remarked Mrs. Bixby, at last.

Then as she turned, she caught sight of an acquaintance across the aisle, who had loitered there hoping for the sun of her smile, to whom she beckoned imperiously; and who came swiftly for whatever was desired of her, at this nod, much as a menial runs in answer to the nod of a master.

"I've got it!"

Arethusa came back with the shawl and several yards of rose-colored ribbon that matched it as perfectly as if woven especially to be worn with it to hold the Locket.

Jessie's face broke into welcoming smiles. Most of the other clerks smiled also. Arethusa's honest joy in her purchases was truly refreshing after Mrs. Bixby.

"Isn't that a perfectly beautiful match?" Arethusa asked of them all impartially, with enthusiasm. "And yet Aunt 'Liza always says I have no sort of taste! Can't you just see darling Aunt 'Senath in all her white clothes with this lovely rose color next to her?"

It was not at all hard for Jessie to imagine the picture after the vivid description she had received of Miss Asenath. "I'll bet she'll look just lovely," she declared warmly, "and it certainly is a splendid match! No one could have matched it better!"

The other girls made a smiling affirmation to this verdict.

Mrs. Bixby turned around from her own conversation at the sudden sound of these animated voices so close to her and lifted her gold lorgnette to examine Arethusa.

"This girl was waiting on me, I believe," she said, indicating Jessie with a wave of her aristocratic hand, and speaking in a pleasantly acid tone that was intended to consign Arethusa to nothingness forever.

But Arethusa gave no smallest sign of doing so.

"She was waiting on me, long before you ever saw her!"

That lorgnette could but irritate Arethusa.

Mrs. Bixby glanced up and down, and then through her.

"Indeed! I think you're mistaken!" Then to Jessie. "I wasn't through, girl."

"But you said...." began poor Jessie.

She was torn between her desire to serve Arethusa, whom, girl-like, she had voted a darling, and her great fear of offending one so powerful as Mrs. Bixby. The floor-walker suddenly turned his attention in their direction, which added to her agitation. But she need not have worried quite so much; her first customer made a sturdy champion of any cause, and she was still most undaunted, lorgnette or no lorgnette.

"There's a whole stack of girls here," declared Arethusa hotly, "and just because you can't help being disagreeable, you want the same one I have! Jessie sold me this shawl before you ever came, and she let me take it over to match it in ribbon!"

Mrs. Bixby displayed an interest. She raised the lorgnette once more.

"Indeed! And had you paid for it?"

"It's none of your business whether I had or not! It's not your store, is it? But I hadn't, so there, if you really want to know!"

"I shall report you immediately," said Mrs. Bixby, majestically to Jessie, "for allowing goods to be taken away from your counter without being paid for, and for not waiting on your customers properly. You were very impudent. And...."

"Why, you're a horrible old woman!" interrupted Arethusa, as if the discovery was most surprising. "A perfectly horrible old woman! But go right ahead and report, if you want to! I reckon it won't hurt anything very much, because I brought the shawl back and I'm going to charge it right now, this very minute!"

"And you," continued Mrs. Bixby, once more consigning the tempestuously excited Arethusa to nothingness with her glance, "are the most decidedly ill-bred young person I ever saw!"

She sailed away and sought the floor-walker.

His glance, after a brief conversation with her, was sternly directed in the direction of the shawl department. He nodded several times in answer to what she said to him, and finally bowed her deferentially towards the outer door.

Arethusa turned to Jessie, whose rather frail hands were trembling in their effort to fold her shawls, and her sympathetic heart ached for this evident distress.

"I wouldn't mind, Jessie. That old beast can't really do anything that would hurt you, can she?"

"I don't know," miserably.

"Was it very wrong to let me take the shawl to have it matched before I had paid for it?"

"It's against the rules. People could steal things that way. But I knew you'd bring it right back."

"That nasty old thing!" Arethusa leaned earnestly across the counter-top. "I'll buy two or three shawls. Would it be all right then?"

Jessie was forced to a smile at this suggested method of straightening out the affair.

"That wouldn't make very much difference about this, I'm afraid. And besides, I don't suppose your mother would like your doing it, very much!"

"She wouldn't care," affirmed the daughter, stoutly. "She wouldn't care the least bit. She's the loveliest person in the world!" Suddenly, an altogether new idea seized her. "They won't discharge you, will they?" It was a horrible thought!

"Oh, no! That is, I don't suppose so. It depends on what she said, mostly. If she told the truth, I might just get reprimanded. They'll dock me probably, though; but that's almost as bad to me right now, as being discharged," bitterly; "I need every single cent of my money."

"Oh, well," Arethusa patted Jessie consolingly on the arm, "Don't you worry! I'll get Father to fix it up for you. He knows Mr. Redmond awfully well. He plays golf with him, and he told me Mr. Redmond owned this store, even if his name isn't on the sign. So he'll fix it!"

She departed, serenity restored all around; for Ross would surely manage it so that Jessie should not suffer for being kind.

But before she was out of the establishment, she unfortunately encountered Mrs. Bixby near the door, who raised her lorgnette and surveyed the "Ill-bred young person" through it again. She so aroused Arethusa's ire that she rushed furiously out of the shop and went headlong on up the street. She had gone quite a block, when she ran ... bang! into a man person, who in her excitement she had not noticed as approaching.

"You seem to be in a very great hurry this fine morning," said a familiar voice, and she looked up.

There was Mr. Bennet smiling at her; standing in the middle of the sidewalk, irreproachably groomed as always, very much Mr. Bennet, and evidently glad to see her.

Arethusa was glad to see him also. She clasped her hands, parcel and all, and dimpled charmingly.

"I'm just as mad as I can be! That nasty old beast of a woman!"

"What old beast of a woman?"

Arethusa launched into explanation.

And as the narrative progressed, Mr. Bennet's inward amusement grew. Arethusa was primed with names, and so he recognised Mrs. Bixby for his aunt, the mentor of their rather extensive family connection. He would have given anything to have seen the encounter! And he would have backed Arethusa for winner without any hesitancy, as well as he knew his dictatorial relative.

"And will you, Mr. Bennet," finished Jessie's champion imploringly, "will you go back and see that man with me and fix it so they won't do anything to Jessie?"

It might be better to fix things up now with Mr. Bennet's able assistance, than to wait until later on to speak to Ross.

"Certainly," said Mr. Bennet, kindly, "I'll be very glad to; if you think I can do any good."

Arethusa was absolutely sure of this. Was he not Mr. Bennet?

Mr. Platt, the floor-walker to whom Mrs. Bixby had complained of Jessie, was also an assistant manager, and he was very glad to have the facts in this particular case, he said, when Arethusa and Mr. Bennet had hunted him up; Arethusa to do most of the talking, and Mr. Bennet to smile and look on, and impress the one who had Jessie's sentence within his power to make either good or bad, by just the fact of his appearance and his air of being someone of importance, which was so decidedly Mr. Bennet's air. The other lady, added Mr. Platt to his speech apologetically, had slightly misrepresented things. She had accused the girl of impudence and inattention, which had sounded bad. And in a store of this size.... But when a customer got excited, she was not always just accurate, yet they could not tell....

Mr. Bennet was most amused by this little dig at his aunt. Arethusa was vigorous in her defense of Jessie, and her denial that Jessie had been at all impudent. And her indignation had made her so pretty, with her flushed cheeks, that Mr. Platt smiled paternally and told her that it would be all right. Probably she herself might like to stop by and tell Jessie so? Nothing suited Arethusa better; so with Mr. Bennet in tow, this pleasant duty was performed, and then once more she sought the outside.

"Now come go to lunch with me," said Mr. Bennet, as they paused under the iron and glass porte-cochere for a moment. "It's lunch time," he added, "and maybe considerably after. I was on my way when I met you."

Arethusa's eyes sparkled at the thought. "But do girls go to lunch down-town with gentlemen?"

He assured her that they often did, and as Arethusa had no further scruples of any sort to add, he led the way across the street to the big Patterson Hotel; the shop where shawls and excitement had been found was exactly opposite.

Arethusa followed him on into the dining-room, her heart beating such an excited tattoo against her chest she was very glad that the band on the little balcony at one end of the room was playing so loudly just then, else she was quite certain that Mr. Bennet, and even the tall and imposing head waiter who was so courteously showing them to a table, would have heard that pounding heart.

It was certainly a Real Adventure.

They were piloted to a spot which Mr. Bennet, from the door-way when they had first stepped inside, had selected for its attractions, a little table for two far over in the corner, just enough removed from the band for the music to be a pleasant accompaniment to the business of luncheon, instead of an interruption, as it often was when closer to it. The table held a lighted candle lamp shaded with a soft rose-colored shade of fluted silk (and not all of the tables boasted little lamps) which seemed to add most delightfully to the intimacy of the occasion.

Arethusa leaned her elbows on the table, and looked happily at Mr. Bennet, sitting so close to her on the other side of the white cloth, ordering a lunch for her to eat. There was a charming intimacy about the situation which could not help but appeal.

"Isn't this fun!" she exclaimed. "Just us!"

Mr. Bennet thought it was, indeed.

And he added instructions to the waiter, about the food which was to be prepared for Arethusa to eat, which further added to the Charm of things. The waiter hurried off with their order, as if he himself deemed it no ordinary order.

Then, while they waited, Arethusa unrolled her parcel and showed Mr. Bennet the shawl and told him all about Miss Asenath.

"It would be wonderful to be loved the way your aunt has loved that man all these years," he said softly, when the Tale was ended, for Arethusa had crowded every single bit of Romance connected with it into her telling.

Her long eyelashes drooped suddenly over her eyes, and the little flush which always came so quickly spread over her face and neck. Her unruly heart beat even faster.

There was a soft, long silence, and Mr. Bennet, admiring the light of the candle lamp on Arethusa's ruddy hair, smiled to himself as he watched her. He had an idea that he knew just about what she was thinking.

Arethusa was thinking that Mr. Bennet was undoubtedly the sort of man that one would be sure to love just that way.

Now Mr. Bennet knew very well how Arethusa felt about him, and this without any real conceit on his part. Arethusa was a woefully transparent young person; she had never learned there are times when it might seem best to dissemble a little. Mr. Bennet knew, perhaps, better than she did herself, the exact state of her Feeling in regard to him. There were some essential points on which they would not have agreed at all; but still.... His main idea as to just how Arethusa felt was pretty clear.

He leaned back in his chair, and continued to watch her. He could almost have laughed aloud at her pretty confusion. Arethusa's nervous fingers crumbled up a perfectly good slice of bread until it could be of no use of any kind to anybody, her head still bent. If the Situation had such charm, it had not lost altogether the power to embarrass, when Words that could cause such Thoughts were softly spoken by a rich and drawling Voice.

The waiter helped matters considerably by bringing in the soup.

Soup has never been regarded as much in the way of a reliever of embarrassment, but it proved to be something of the kind in this particular case. Arethusa's tongue was loosened again, and she chattered of inconsequential topics of variety, but none of them brought such moments as the one just past. There was much to be said to Mr. Bennet, for they had grown to be great friends in the last few weeks and had many interests in common.

It was an unusually nice little luncheon that Mr. Bennet had ordered; and it was perfect eaten so, just the two of them, thought Arethusa. It was prolonged quite beyond the time generally allotted for luncheons, for it was almost half-past three when they emerged from the Hotel.

"Well, what shall we do now?" asked Mr. Bennet. He glanced at his watch and then shut it with a snap. "I don't believe I'll go back to the office again this afternoon; that is.... How about you? Are you free? What do you say to a moving-picture show?"

Arethusa was delighted. She had nothing whatever to do, and she adored the movies. She had seen a few with Ross and Elinor.

So Mr. Bennet stepped back into the Hotel to telephone Miss Ford that he would not be back that afternoon; and then they strolled side by side up the street, he and Arethusa, hunting for the picture show which seemed to have the most to offer.

The one they finally chose to attend proved to be so exciting that Arethusa scarcely breathed a word to him until it was all over, and the film had gone around and started to go around again, so that she could be perfectly sure she had seen every bit of it. There was a great deal of honest realism about the acting done on the screen for Arethusa, photography though it might be. A smothered scream had attested to Mr. Bennet the genuineness of her fear for her own safety during a portion of this picture's running, and her sudden jump when the evil-looking Indian had shot the handsome cowboy, and the little sound of distress she had made, told him that although movie guns were said to fire blank cartridges, they inflicted actual damage for Arethusa.

It was dark when they left the moving-picture theatre, and well after five. Winter days seem woefully short.

"Well, what shall we do now?" asked Mr. Bennet, for the second time. "I suppose, though, it will be home. It's so late."

Arethusa stopped short in the middle of the crowded sidewalk, full of folks who were plainly impatient to get somewhere, and very probably it was home, flowing past her on either side, all unregarded. She grabbed Mr. Bennet frantically by one arm.

"Oh, Mr. Bennet!"

"What's the matter? Did you leave something in the theater?"

"No! But I've left Clay waiting in the machine for me all this time in front of that store, and I never thought of him once until you said, 'home!'"

The last part of this information was wafted on the breeze to Mr. Bennet, for Arethusa had started off down the street with the swiftness of the wind itself. He followed her immediately, but considerably more slowly as to locomotion (he was no sprinter and Mr. Bennet rarely forgot his dignity) and with the parcel containing Miss Asenath's birthday gift in one hand. Arethusa had dropped it directly at his feet in her excitement. When he caught up with her, she was standing in front of the shop gazing wildly up and down the street, for no Clay and no automobile were to be discovered anywhere.

The door attendant, when questioned by Mr. Bennet, said that he remembered the chauffeur referred to very well. He had seemed to be very worried about the young lady, and had left his car several times to ask him if he had seen her come out. But he had driven off some time ago, about three hours ago, the door attendant thought it was, to be as exact as he could.

Mr. Bennet took Arethusa home in a taxicab to an excited and distraught household.

When Clay had come back without her, with his strange story of having waited for her, and that she had never returned to the machine, Ross had been perfectly sure that she had been kidnapped, and he had gone impetuously to the police station to start an immediate search. Elinor was prostrate in her room, visioning all sorts of dreadful things that might have happened to an Arethusa always too prone to make chance acquaintances, when Arethusa herself, as repentant and contrite a cause of it all as it was possible for her to be, walked in.

Elinor would not allow Ross to scold her after she heard Arethusa's sobbing explanation, that she was having such a good time she forgot everything else; for she said that he was really more to blame for that than anyone concerned.

Which rather cryptic statement, if Arethusa failed of comprehension, seemed to be quite clear to her father.

CHAPTER XX

The winter sped away until Christmas, on wings of fleetness that made the days seem as if they had only been hours since Arethusa had come to Lewisburg. Life was crowded so full of new experiences and happenings that she had absolutely no smallest room or time for any moments of home-sickness for the Farm. And then.... There was Mr. Bennet.

Now Arethusa honestly interested Mr. Bennet.

It was not alone her unabashed and open admiration of himself which amused while it flattered, just a little, for he was only human; but she had an unbounding enthusiasm for everything she saw and did which made it a real delight to be with her anywhere, at dance, or theater or football game or moving picture. There was nothing blasé or jaded of any of life's offerings about Arethusa. She developed, as the days passed, into a young lady much sought after by the male of the species; for this same quality which endeared her to Mr. Bennet brought her many other suitors. And, argued Arethusa, being very much in love with one Charming Person does not prevent one from having a very good time with others of the same sex, when the opportunity is presented.

But the Core of her Heart undoubtedly remained true to her First Love, the Wonderful Mr. Bennet.

He was still, of all the men she had met, the one whose approach made her heart heat faster; whose voice, even coming from afar over the telephone, had the power to make her thrill; and around whom she builded innocent little castles in the air intended for the Perfect Bliss of two, in which she always saw herself as the other person, and which made her blush as she sat all alone and builded them. But even a more sophisticated maiden than Arethusa might have been led to the building of air castles by Mr. Bennet's manner, singling her out, as it undoubtedly seemed to do, from among all those girls of his acquaintance as the one with whom he most cared to be.

This affair, as it progressed, amused Ross immensely.

He teased his daughter most unmercifully about Mr. Bennet, and she blushed and bridled over the teasing as any orthodox lovelorn miss should, and has since the beginning of time, when the name of her Beloved is taken in vain. There was no real harm in the object upon which she had so settled her affections, said Ross to Arethusa. She was only about the twenty-fifth girl, to the certain knowledge of all Lewisburg, whom he had graciously permitted to be thus "crazy about" his handsome self; it was a disease positively certain to attack every debutante in the town in her turn; and so on. But Arethusa's invariable reply to such very disagreeable remarks was that no one in his right mind would consider blaming those girls in the least.

But as much as Mr. Bennet sought her company, it was Ross and not Mr. Bennet, who had the pleasure of escorting her to her first football game, on Thanksgiving day. And perhaps it was just as well, for on this Occasion she created more excitement than the game itself by falling down in between the rows of seats as she bodily assisted the ball of her chosen side up the field to goal.

The automobile was another never ending source of delight. Clay had become a sworn ally. He was at her beck and call with cheerful willingness to do whatsoever she commanded, at any hour of the day or night; and the weather was never too unseasonable to go out with a machine if Miss Arethusa wanted it. Hitherto, Clay had been as careful of those two shining cars in Elinor's garage as if they had been bound to suffer permanently from mud splashes and rain drops. He taught her how to run, first the smaller one and then the limousine, as Arethusa insisted she be allowed to try it. She was so strong and quick that she soon learned, and she really liked the larger car better, as it was more powerful. Many an hour was spent out with Clay these first wintry days, out on frosted country roads that crackled under the heavy tires as they rushed along.

Arethusa, somehow, never went on one of these expeditions but that she wished for Timothy. He would have loved it, she was sure; the rushing through the country on wings of a swiftness almost unbelievable, and feeling the heart of the big thing throbbing underneath her and responding to her slightest touch as quickly as if it had been a toy, instead of a monster that required a whole wide street in which to be turned.

Ross informed her she was in a fair way to make some headlines for breakfast tables, which he interpreted as meaning:

"BEAUTIFUL YOUNG DAUGHTER OF WEALTHY PARENTS ELOPES WITH HANDSOME CHAUFFEUR!"

Then Arethusa must tell her father and Elinor all that she had learned about Clay in these many rides, and about the girl he hoped to marry some day, and about the invalid sister whom he supported.

For Elinor, warm-hearted as she was and as kind to everyone about her, had not even known of their existence until Arethusa told her. But Arethusa had been more than once to call at the tiny cottage where Clay's invalid sister lived with the two stronger ones who worked, and she had carried books and fruit to the sweet-faced girl whose only glimpse of the big world was what was brought to her in her own room by those who loved her. Arethusa's friendships never stopped contented with knowing a person; she had to know all about them. She had met the fianceé at the cottage many times, and she thoroughly approved of her for Clay. And both of these girls adored Arethusa.

It was from one of these excursions she was returning when she brought the automobile to such an abrupt stop, that Clay, who had yielded her the wheel at her request and was not noticing just then at all, was almost thrown out of his seat.

"There's Mrs. Cherry," screamed Arethusa. "Oh, Mrs. Cherry! Mrs. Cherry!"

It was undoubtedly Mrs. Cherry and Helen Louise and Peter; Mrs. Cherry holding a hand of each child and strolling slowly along gazing into shop windows gaily decorated and full of Christmas things. Quite a bit more prosperous-looking trio than of old they were, but Mrs. Cherry, for all the better clothes, was still just as comfortably untidy as ever.

"Mrs. Cherry!"

Arethusa waved wildly, fearful lest her friend should enter the store into whose windows she was at that moment gazing, and miss her altogether. But Mrs. Cherry turned around at this last wild cry, and looked uncertainly up and down the crowded street and across, directly at Arethusa, without recognizing her, or without locating the call.

"Here, Clay," Arethusa began clambering ungracefully over the brakes and handles around the wheel of the car, and across him before he could move. "Here, you take it, I must go speak to Mrs. Cherry!"

"Well, if it ain't Miss Worth'ton!" exclaimed Mrs. Cherry when Arethusa had reached her, after a rather dangerous scramble between trucks and horses and street cars.

Mrs. Cherry beamed all over in expansive greeting; Peter sidled shyly behind her generous proportions, as for shelter; and Helen Louise smiled, timidly, a slightly more toothless smile than hers had been, even a few weeks past.

Arethusa held out both hands. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you! I've thought about you often and often and wondered where you were and what you were doing. And Helen Louise and Peter!"

"You look just as pretty as a peach!" declared Mrs. Cherry, with hearty warmth, grasping those outstretched hands to pump them vigorously, up and down. "I never would have knowed you!"

"Come get in the automobile," invited Arethusa, "and then we can talk. And oh!" seized with a sudden inspiration, "go home to lunch with me, it's most lunch time now! Please, please, Mrs. Cherry!"

Mrs. Cherry demurred. But Peter pulled at a fold of her skirt, the word "lunch" had aroused in him a strong, if sudden, sense of lack.

"Ma, I'm hungry!" he said.

"Well, that's nothing very new, you're always that," replied his parent.

Helen Louise had been focused in round-eyed admiration on the Beautiful Lady before her, without uttering a word; now she murmured something indistinguishable above the roar about her. Her mother stopped to catch it.

"Well, I reckon there ain't no harm in it, if you're right sure it won't be no trouble to anybody. Helen Louise ain't never been in a auto before and she says she's tired and wants to ride.... I reckon she might be.... I'm most wore out myself. We've done a sight of walking this morning. I've been aiming to bring these children down here ever' day for a week, and never got clear 'round to it, tel to-day. It was something sorter like Providence done kept me busy, I reckon, Miss Worth'ton, I wouldn't have seen you no other day, p'raps. Law, but your Pa must be a rich man, Miss Worth'ton, to be owning a thing like this here!"

For under cover of Mrs. Cherry's volubility, Arethusa had piloted the whole family safely to the automobile.

Mrs. Cherry leaned back on the cushions as one to the manner born. Helen Louise was frankly overawed by the unaccustomed magnificence of the limousine, and seemed to shrink before it with visibility. Peter's eyes grew rounder and rounder with each passing moment. All of Arethusa's efforts to draw Helen Louise into the conversation failed; she seemed stricken absolutely tongue-tied. Even a reference to her father failed to arouse to animation. Peter sat stiffly erect, also silent, one grubby hand tightly clutching his mother's sleeve as if he feared the catastrophe of losing her through the swiftness of his riding.

But Mrs. Cherry well supplied any lack of words from her children.

"I've wondered and wondered myself, about you, Miss Worth'ton, ever so many times sence that trip we rode on the cars together. Whether you found your Pa and everything like you was thinking you would and if you been having a good time like you said you knew you was going to."

"Oh, I've had a Heavenly Time!" Arethusa cried, "Just a Perfectly Heavenly Time, Mrs. Cherry! And everyone is so Perfectly Lovely to me!"

"That's 'cause you're what you are," remarked Mrs. Cherry, shrewdly.

She was loud in her sincere admiration of the ungainly pile where the Worthingtons lived; it seemed a superbly beautiful exterior to her ideas. But when George, who for all the dinginess of his skin had a classic countenance and a dignity of bearing which the Prime Minister of England might well have envied him, opened the front door for Arethusa and her cavalcade, Mrs. Cherry was suddenly stricken as tongue-tied as Helen Louise.

George himself came nearer to losing his equilibrium than ever he had in all his years of efficient service, when he saw what his young lady had in tow; but he concealed his agitation with real credit to his training.

"Is Mother in, George?"

"She's in the music room, Miss Arethusa."

Then Arethusa remembered Something, all at once. It was Something that brought panic. She took Mrs. Cherry and her progeny into the library as rapidly as it was possible for her to move them onward without actually pushing them.

"I'll go find Mother," she said, hurriedly.

She left them seated, in a row of stiff attitudes of discomfort on the big davenport, Peter still with a tight hold of his mother, who sat erect and glassy-eyed beside him. George had been almost too much for Mrs. Cherry.

Elinor was just coming out of the music room as Arethusa rushed toward her down the hall.

"Did I hear you talking to any one, dear? You're rather late. I'm afraid you barely have time to dress."

"Mother," exclaimed Arethusa, and the sound was tragedy whispered, "I forgot it was your party to-day and I met Mrs. Cherry down-town, and I brought her home to lunch with me!"

"Mrs. Cherry? Who...?"

"The one who was so nice to me on the train. I told you about her, don't you remember? But, Mother, I honestly did forget all about your party! Honest to goodness! What shall I do!"

Elinor laughed.

She was somewhat used to Arethusa's impulsiveness by this time, so this did not seem such a very surprising thing for her to do.

"And, Mother," Arethusa's hissing whisper grew yet more tragic, "I brought Helen Louise and Peter home with me too, they were with her when I met her!"

"Peter and Helen Louise!! Who on earth are they?"

Elinor could not help but think that this last was going a bit far; for adding three to a carefully arranged luncheon for ten would be somewhat of a strain.

"Her children!" Arethusa was wildly penitent. Her eyes began filling with her ever-ready tears. "Oh, Mother, I was just so glad to see her! I really didn't mean to do anything to mess up your party! I was just so glad to see her! She was so awfully nice to me that day!"

"Don't cry, Arethusa," said Elinor absently, "don't cry, please! It isn't worth tears. We'll fix it somehow."

Yet the situation was a bit peculiar, without a doubt. The Cherry family could not be sent home, though at the same time, Elinor had a vision of some of those worthy ladies she had invited to her luncheon should the Cherry children join the Party. Just what had best be done....

Arethusa had a gleam first.

"Could Mrs. Cherry," she suggested timidly, "could Mrs. Cherry come to your Party and let me eat with Helen Louise and Peter in the breakfast room? Would it make very much difference?" And this was the noblest piece of self-sacrifice on Arethusa's part which any human being has ever performed, for above all else on earth, save the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, she loved a Party. "Would it make very much difference if I didn't come?"

Elinor considered that there were possibilities in this Idea of such real worth that it almost atoned for the lapse which had made it necessary of existence. She could tell better, however, after seeing Mrs. Cherry whether it could be carried out in its entirety or modified or extended.

So she and Arethusa proceeded to the library.

Peter had somewhat recovered himself during the moments of Arethusa's absence and was now engaged in climbing first into one big chair and then another, and bounding out. It was a charming pastime, but one in which Helen Louise had refused to join. She still sat just as at first, like a small graven image, with stiff little flaxen plaits sticking out from each side of her head, and staring straight before her, with unblinking pale blue eyes, at the log fire. Her small hands were clasped between her rigid little knees, and her feet, owing to the fact that she was small and the davenport was large, were far from the floor and extended at direct right angles from her body. She did not even move at the entrance of Arethusa with Elinor.

Mrs. Cherry, like her son, was rapidly coming to herself after that encounter with the magnificent George. She was reclining now, at ease, and her eyes were roving busily about, and she made little ejaculations under her breath with each new object she spied.

Elinor was exceedingly gracious when Arethusa introduced her to the unexpected guest, although she hardly acknowledged the meeting with the unadulterated cordiality as the other party to it, for Mrs. Cherry had been born cordial. But no one, least of all Mrs. Cherry herself, would have gathered from Elinor's manner that plans for a formal luncheon had been a trifle upset. She explained that she was having a few friends of her own to lunch and that she believed that it might be pleasanter for the children to have theirs separately. Grown folks and their conversation were very tiring to children. Mrs. Cherry agreed with all of this.

But Elinor also was of the opinion that the Cherry family had best lunch en masse, with Arethusa, and so adroitly did she manage this part of the affair that Mrs. Cherry ever afterwards firmly believed it was she, herself, who had suggested that she join Helen Louise and Peter and the younger hostess, rather than Elinor's older guests.

The division of luncheon guests which Arethusa headed was safely garnered in the breakfast room with only a narrow margin of time to spare before Elinor's division arrived.

Mrs. Cherry was treated there to a collation that so long as she lived remained distinctive, with a white-capped maid in a black dress and much befrilled apron to serve it in courses just as the other luncheon was served. She ate from egg-shell china, and drank from glasses, so crystal clear and thin, that they long stood to Mrs. Cherry as a synonym for perfection.

"It's as purty as them glasses of Mis' Worth'ton's," was her final word of praise.

And Helen Louise and Peter ate and ate and ate, until their hostess began to be anxious and wondered where they were putting it all.

Then George smuggled in the Victrola, and behind carefully closed doors Arethusa gave a Concert which endeared her to a music-loving Helen Louise forever, as the brightest memory of her life. Clay took them home in the automobile, with a little ride through the Park beforehand, so that the Cherrys' cup of bliss was almost too full. Arethusa went with them, but when she had come back, it was much too late to join that Real Party of Elinor's.

Miss Eliza would not have considered Elinor's method of dealing with Arethusa any sort of punishment for such a performance as she had been guilty of this day, but Elinor knew only too well what a real punishment it was.

It was a most subdued Arethusa who came down to the dinner-table that evening, although very eager to know all the details of the Affair she had missed. Even Helen Louise and Peter and their mother, charming as they were, had not proven any sort of substitutes for the Luncheon with Elinor's friends to which Arethusa had looked forward so long.

"Did Miss Grant come?" she asked.

She was somewhat of a worshipper at Miss Grant's shrine these days (Miss Grant was a Real, Live Author whose books Arethusa had read) and it had been planned that she would sit next to her.

"Yes."

It was a disappointing answer, for Arethusa had vaguely hoped that for some reason she had stayed away.

"Yes," volunteered Ross, "your Celebrity was here, and in fine form. I heard her delightful voice as I came in, myself. It has a penetrating quality that probably arises from being so much in the Public Eye."

Arethusa squirmed, unhappily.

"Did she ask where I was?" hopefully.

"No, dear," very gently from Elinor, "I don't suppose she thought for a moment that you were to be there. You know I was just letting you come with all those older women, Arethusa, because I was so anxious for you to really know some of my friends."

"You certainly got yourself in Dutch, my daughter," said Ross, "for starting up that rival entertainment. And it's a mighty good thing, I expect, that the adulated Miss Drusilla Grant did not know you felt that way about her coming to dine. She would have been deeply offended, I know. She's not used to slights. I doubt very much if she'd ever let you pick up her handkerchief after such an affront."

"Ross!" exclaimed Elinor, for he had made Arethusa's punishment almost too complete.

Her downcast head and the trembling of her hands indicated a struggle with distress, and he reached across the table and patted her arm kindly. "Cheer up, child," he said, laughing, "she doesn't know a thing about it, and nobody's going to be mean enough to tell her. We just won't let it happen again."

Arethusa looked up, her eyes bright with tears, and the fervency of her promise that she would think like everything first, hereafter, made Elinor hope that the Recording Angel gives credit for Real Sincerity of Intention.

Christmas came in snowy and blustery.

It was an ideal Christmas Day, and just such a one as Arethusa had never spent before; with a Christmas Tree in the morning, and a table full of guests in the middle of the day, callers all afternoon long, and presents galore, in the shape of boxes of candy and flowers and many other equally useful articles that were showered upon her by admiring friends.

Mr. Bennet sent another box of American Beauties which Arethusa carried upstairs to put in her own room, so that she could see them the very first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, and she meant to make them last as long as clipped stems and fresh water could make them. His Gift....

It was a Wonderful, Wonderful Day, one that was never to be forgotten.

There was a dance that night out at the Country Club, and Arethusa had a new dress for it especially. She had a very guilty feeling sometimes when she thought of Miss Eliza and the rows of new garments that hung in the closet of the green and white room. It was a gloriously romping, Christmasy dance, for the college boys and girls, and Arethusa wished very much that Timothy could have been in attendance; and this in spite of the fact that she had Mr. Bennet. But it was such an Occasion as Timothy would have loved, with formality thrown to the four winds and everybody just bent on having as much fun as was possible; even the men's evening clothes seemed to partake of the festival feeling and appeared to be worn with a rakish air quite unlike their customary somber wearing. The girls' dresses, of course, all fluttered with the spirit of the season; and voices were gay, and eyes were bright.

Arethusa had never been conscious of the lack of Timothy at any other dance, because they had all been, every one, so unlike anything that she could associate with him. But this dance on Christmas night was so different, so suitable for Timothy, that she did wish he could have been there.

Probably it helped her a little in this wish that he had sent her, all the way from Miss Asenath's Woods, a great box of mistletoe and holly (she and Timothy had gathered mistletoe and holly there together every Christmas since she could remember) and she had had a little homesick moment when she opened it; it brought the Farm, with all its dear inmates, so plainly before her. Christmas was very quiet there; it seemed more like a real Holy Day, and less like a Holiday, than it did in town.

Arethusa had sent Timothy a watch fob for Christmas, one with his fraternity emblem on it which she knew that he had long ardently desired; and books which she had thought would surely appeal to his taste in reading; and handkerchiefs, beautiful big squares of linen, shakily marked in his initials with her own fair fingers.

The box she had sent to the Farm itself made Miss Eliza close her lips grimly and think unutterable things about the deadly wickedness of extravagance. She uttered some things before she had closed her lips, quite forcibly, but as Arethusa was not present, it could not do much good. Arethusa did not forget a single creature at the Farm. Beginning with Miss Asenath, every living thing had a gift. Miss Johnson had a collar of wonderfully shiny, brassy beauty; old Baldy, the horse, had a new blanket; and there was even a catnip ball for the grey cat that slept in front of Mandy's stove. There were so many cats at the Farm that it was quite impossible to remember them all, but Arethusa reasoned that they would all enjoy a catnip ball.

Never, in all of the history of the season, did any one ever have such a Christmas Glow as this of Arethusa's. And it was extended most lavishly to everyone she met through these days, whether she knew them or not, old and young, rich or poor, from smiling lips and starry eyes.

"A Real Spirit of Christmas," Ross called her, "red hair and all!"

But after Christmas was over, there was no actual subsiding of Excitement. For on New Year's Day Elinor was giving Arethusa a Party, her First Party of her Very Own; and it was to be the most Wonderful Party that had ever been given.

And Timothy had been invited. His was the very first invitation sent.

CHAPTER XXI

But Timothy wrote that he was sorry, but he could not come.

He thought that Arethusa's letters home had lately been almost too full of a person by the name of Bennet, and torn between a curiosity to observe this person for himself in the flesh, and a disinclination to place himself in a position that should give her the opportunity to express her preference in public, the latter won.

Arethusa stormed and raged, as was quite to be expected.

It was so stupid of him to refuse! He would spoil the whole Party if he did not come! She almost cried with vexation as she read his letter at the breakfast-table.

"He's just got to come, that's all! Nasty thing! And I'll just bet he waited till right now to write so it would be too late for me to write to him again! That would be just like him! He's had that invitation two whole weeks! Oh, I just hate him for acting this way!"

"I shouldn't think you would be so anxious to have a person you hated at your Party," remarked Ross.

"Of course I want Timothy to come," replied Arethusa, with decision. "More than anyone else except you and Mother."

"More than Mr. Bennet even?" asked her father, wickedly.

No reply of any kind was made to this sally.

But why couldn't Timothy come? Why did he want to be so horrid for? And she expressed herself with many more ejaculations of a like nature, until finally Ross suggested that it might be a wise plan to send Timothy a telegram of urgency.

Arethusa seized with pleasure on this idea.

When she learned that he would receive it this very morning, if it was started immediately, she left the breakfast-table to get her hat and coat, telling George to notify Clay that she wanted the machine right away. She insisted on personal attention to this important affair, refusing to trust the telephone, although Elinor assured her it would go just as surely. Her own handwriting, said Arethusa, would have far more effect on Timothy than the handwriting of any stranger. She knew very little about telegrams.

So Ross gave her all the details of the sending of one, and told her where it might be done, and Arethusa departed gaily with Clay, who had been called from his breakfast to serve her. She explained to him on the ride down-town how very important it all was, and just how necessary that Timothy receive this message with despatch, so that Clay, being a sensible person, could not help but feel it more vital than his breakfast.

The telegraph operator at the Patterson Hotel where Ross had told her to go, was an obliging youth at all times, and he felt still more obliging when Arethusa's vivid face appeared before him and her eager voice announced that she wanted to send a telegram; and was this the right place?

It was. He informed her further that she could send ten words for fifty cents.

Ten words was a great many; she could say almost twice as much as she wanted to in ten words.

Her first attempt went something on this order....

"Dear Timothy—I will never speak to you again as long as I live if you don't come to my party. You just must come.

"Arethusa."

Arethusa read it in triumph. It expressed just what she wanted to express to Timothy. Then she counted the words she had written, and her facial expression changed radically. She leaned over the counter toward the operator.

"Does it have to be ten words?"

"If it's a telegram, Miss, unless you want to pay the charges for the extra words. It might be a day letter," he suggested.

"Is a telegram quicker?"

It was.

Then it must be a telegram.

She counted the words over again, but they remained considerably more than ten.

"But I've got to say all that," she said, aloud, "I've just got to!"

She tried once more, and once more after that. The capacity of ten words for expressing what one wished to say seemed to decrease with each trial to write the telegram. The operator volunteered his professional help, after he had watched her spoil several blanks. He smiled slightly as he read the one she handed him, gratefully accepting his kind offer.

"You've never sent one before, have you, Miss?"

Arethusa propped her elbows on the high counter, and rested her chin on them so she could regard his work. "No, I haven't," and she smiled down at him so charmingly he could almost have franked that telegram through. "But I thought ten words was oceans."

"No, Miss, it isn't very many." He scratched out the "Dear Timothy," she had written "You don't generally say that."

"You don't! Why, how do you know who it's for?"

"You have the address and that doesn't cost you anything."

Arethusa stood on tip-toe and leaned far over the counter to see what he was doing. She was as close to him as it was possible for her to get with a large piece of furniture in between them.

"Let's see it?" she asked, breathlessly, when he had finished writing.

It read, in the operator's version:—

"Must come to party, very displeased if you do not.

"Arethusa."

Her face clouded. "But I wanted to tell him that I wouldn't speak to him again if he didn't come. I know he won't, unless I do. Let me come around where you are, can't I? And can't you say that, that I won't speak to him?"

The very obliging youth indicated a little gate at one side where she might find a way in, and Arethusa joined him in consultation over the message. Two heads are always better than one.

In its final form, the telegram read:—

"Will never speak to you again if you don't come.

"Arethusa."

Which proved to be perfectly satisfactory, and lived up to all the good reputations of telegrams; for it fetched Timothy.

Arethusa met him herself, at the station, when he came the morning of the Party. She was so Glad to see him! She flung both arms around his neck and more than one soft kiss was pressed warmly against his cheek: Timothy all unresisting.

"Oh, Timothy! Timothy!! Timothy!!!"

It was a far more enthusiastic greeting than he had dared let himself expect he would have. He returned her many soft kisses with one very vigorous osculation that landed near one eyebrow as she bobbed up and down beside him, and which was immediately rubbed off with the back of Arethusa's glove.

"You're always so awfully rough. But.... Oh, Timothy!"

She grabbed him firmly by one arm, as if she really feared he might escape her and the Party even now, though actually in Lewisburg, and led him to where Clay waited for them with the big red automobile. To Clay, she introduced her charge with the simple announcement, "He really came, Clay." But no other was needed, for the chauffeur knew who it was with Arethusa, and all about him. Timothy's fame had gone before him; Arethusa had not made a single warm friend since she had left the Farm who had not at least heard of Timothy.

She pushed him into the car and banged the door. Then she seated herself close to him, and bounced up and down on the cushions happily.

"Say right away what a wonderful automobile you think this is, Timothy!"

Timothy was perfectly obedient.

"I can run it, all by myself. You don't believe it, but I can. I'll show you some day, maybe to-morrow. Oh, Timothy, I'm so awfully, awfully glad you came! How is Aunt 'Senath and all of them? How is Miss Johnson? Oh, I would never forgive you if you hadn't! That's a new suit you have on!" suddenly leaning forward to pounce on the portion of the trouser leg that showed from under his overcoat, "And it's a new overcoat, too! Why, Timothy!"

Timothy pleaded guilty to both accusations.

"You look awfully nice!" Arethusa gave him a very violent hug most unexpectedly. "Oh, but it was so dear of you to come! And, Timothy, we're going to have a perfectly wonderful Party!"

Timothy longed to give Arethusa a hug in return for this one, but he really did not dare. She would probably have called him rough again, for his way of hugging. He looked at her a trifle sadly. She seemed to Timothy such a far-away Arethusa, in spite of all this enthusiasm. And after that look, he felt her more unapproachable than at first. He could not tell exactly what it was; perhaps, her clothes.

Arethusa caught his glance at her furs and saucy little hat, with its fly-away feather, and preened herself just a bit.

"How do you like me? My new things? Aren't they darling?"

"Yes," replied Timothy, but there was not very much warmth in his tone. "And I like you in anything; but I believe I like you better in what Miss 'Titia makes you."

"In what Aunt 'Titia makes me!" she exclaimed, horrified at Timothy's poor taste. "Of course you don't! You can't!" But she added, quickly, for her loyal heart felt that something was not quite right about the sound of that speech. "Aunt 'Titia's clothes look better at home, on the Farm! They wouldn't do at all for town! But she's a Dear to make them for me, and I love them! They're perfectly all right in the country!"

"That's where I like you better," replied Timothy decidedly, and very briskly and warmly this time. "On the Farm! And in the country!"

"Oh, Timothy, don't begin and gloom now! Please don't! That's a dear!" Arethusa clasped her hands imploringly. "Please, please, don't gloom! I'm not going to fuss with you once while you're here, not once! I promise, honest! So there!"

This should have been very cheering news. But Timothy merely remarked with calmness that she shouldn't have time to do much fussing, anyway, since he was going home on the morning train.

"Why, Timothy Jarvis!"

Yes, he repeated, the early morning train was the train he fully intended to take.

"No, you're not!"

Arethusa was very firm about it, but then so was he. And a quarrel seemed most imminent, in spite of Arethusa's earnest promise, had they not very fortunately arrived at the house in Lenox Avenue just in time to prevent the disagreement from becoming disagreeable.

Ross liked Timothy immensely. He liked his bigness, and his honest youngness, and his clean-heartedness, written all over him. Elinor liked him too. And the boy had not been in the house five minutes before Ross and Elinor both had read his story in his blue eyes. Those blue eyes never once left Arethusa.

Arethusa's tongue certainly seemed swung in the middle during the rest of this day. But then there were two whole months and over to make up. They came within really dangerous hailing distance of an affray several times, sad to relate, when Timothy planted himself in one position, immovable, and she firmly entrenched herself in another. He did not seem to be able to approve of a single thing she had to tell him about the various and sundry occupations with which she filled her days in Lewisburg. But a person in so supremely felicitous a mood as Arethusa was in at the prospect of her very own Party, could not actually quarrel with anybody, however obstinate he might be; so the hours sped happily by, and the pitfalls were somehow avoided.

"Doesn't Timothy look just perfectly heavenly when he has on a dress suit?"

Arethusa asked this pointed question very proudly of her parents when she led him into the library that evening after dinner, to show them how nice he looked, just before the Party came. She held him by one hand, quite as if she had been a fond mother exhibiting an only child whose toilette was solely of her personal making. One could easily have imagined her actually responsible for the cut and fit of Timothy's suit.

But he did look well, undeniably. Ross said that Baldur the Beautiful might have looked just like him, if they had ever worn dress suits in Valhalla, with his wavy blonde head and his sea blue eyes, and his splendid bigness. Although Arethusa knew no myths of the Northland, something about Ross's compliment to Timothy pleased her; she was proud to show him off as such a handsome creature.

But Timothy very nearly spoiled matters by inquiring who sent her the flowers she wore at her belt, as they stood together in front of the library fire, in such an "I-have-a-right-to-know" manner, that she slapped him and told him to mind his own business. And so the Party, after all, began for Timothy with unhappiness.

Arethusa was wearing a white dress on this Occasion, but it was a glorified White Dress, of such beauty, that some other name would surely have to be found for Miss Letitia's loving effort; it would be clearly impossible to speak of them both as "white dresses." Her hair was piled high on her head in a way that Timothy had never seen her wear it, and that he vaguely did not like, because it made her look so much older. And in her low-necked gown and wearing the flowers another man had sent her, she seemed to Timothy more than ever of a world apart. She was like an Arethusa met for the first time. He wished intensely that he could gather her up and carry her back to the country where he considered she so indisputably belonged, to be the old Arethusa once more. He looked gloomily down the length of the library, which had been cleared for dancing of all its furniture, and that presented an expanse of shining floor on which the firelight danced and gleamed enticingly, and wished another wish. He wished that he himself had stayed at home. Why had he gone contrary to the dictates of his common sense and come in answer to that telegram? Arethusa did not really want him; did not really care, now that he was here. She was altogether changed; and, thought Timothy, rather soberly, his head resting on one hand as he leaned against the mantel-shelf and stared down into the fire, it was not at all for the better.

But Timothy was to be still more unhappy before the evening had got fairly started. For in Arethusa's transparent face and her eyes lifted adoringly to the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, the very first time he saw her dance with him, poor Timothy read his Certain Doom. As he had predicted before she had ever left the Farm, so it had come to pass.

Timothy left his station by the tall library mantel and wandered across the room to an inconspicuous corner, where he propped his manly form up against the wall and followed Arethusa with his eyes, totally unregardful of anything else in their line of vision, as she swayed and dipped like a snow fairy in her airy white gown, about the room. He was no great adept in the concealment of his feelings; his tragedy was visible so that all they who ran might read, even the swiftest.

He refused to dance. And he could have danced, knowing how very well. Was not Arethusa's present proficiency some evidence of this fact? But Timothy was sure that his heart was broken; and how could he dance with a broken heart? So he sulked in his corner and the moments of the Party sped by joyfully and all too quickly, for everybody else. Arethusa's guests, with the sole exception of Timothy, seemed to be having the very best of times.

She was far too happy herself to notice his unhappiness very much, although she did fly over to him once or twice to beg him to behave and stop being such an awful gloom. And she made him dance with her, one single one-step; a rite which was performed by Timothy promptly at her request, but in a stony silence on his part. When it was over, he discovered that somebody had pre-empted his little corner, a very silly couple were giggling foolishly in the spot which had been sacred to sorrow all evening long; so he betook himself to the doorway into the hall, and propped himself up against the jamb, where he continued his unhappy observation of Arethusa's proceedings.

Ross watched him with amusement.

"It is woefully apparent," he remarked to Elinor, "just what is eating our friend, Timothy."

He looked around for Mr. Bennet, and he found him dancing with Arethusa at the moment; then he looked back at Timothy once more, and he could easily tell that Timothy's somber blue eyes had seen just exactly what he had seen; Arethusa and Mr. Bennet so obviously enjoying each other's company.

"Shall I go over there and tell him, do you think, that he is giving himself most unnecessary pain over my daughter's present state of mind, which is only a phase? Or do you believe, my Fount of all Wisdom, that I had best let matters stand as they are?"

"I'd really let him alone, Ross, about that, I think. For he wouldn't believe a single word you could say to him. He has right now what he considers conclusive evidence, what his own eyes have told him. He and Arethusa are a pair of the youngest things I ever saw, bless their hearts! But please do go talk to him about something, Ross, because I cannot bear to see him follow that child around any longer with that utterly hopeless expression."

So Ross, as a dutiful spouse, sauntered over to Timothy in his doorway and made a most noble, and really commendable effort, considering the total lack of real response he received, which is so dampening to all such efforts, to interest him in conversation. Timothy answered with all the politeness due to Mr. Worthington, but without the slightest zeal for pursuit of any one of the subjects which were introduced, in succession, as each one seemed to fail to arouse animation. Elinor's real intention in sending her husband to fill this breach was not a complete success, for the boy's eyes never once rested upon his interlocutor; they still remained fixed wherever Arethusa was.

Timothy adhered to his announced intention of leaving on the following morning, much to Arethusa's fury.

She tried coaxing and threats of future silence, and even tears; all to no avail. Timothy's resolution was absolutely unshaken. His "Good-bye, Arethusa!" was of the very essence of tragedy. Ross found it necessary to look hastily in another direction.

"Please stay, Timothy," pleaded Arethusa for about the hundredth time, even after this "Good-bye!" "Please stay!" Then as a supreme inducement and a last resort.... "Mr. Bennet said last night that if you would, he would get you an invitation to the January Cotillion next week. Everybody is crazy for them; they give so awfully few away. But he can get you one, and he said he'd be very glad to, too. He's a Governor," proudly.

She had been holding tight to Timothy's hands all this while in her effort to induce him to prolong his visit; but now he rudely wrenched them loose and drew himself to the very tallest of his tall self.

"I wouldn't go anywhere that man was," he exclaimed fiercely, "if he paid me a million dollars a minute! Not unless it was to his funeral, and I'd attend that with the greatest pleasure, and even pay for the privilege of getting into the cemetery!"

"Timothy Jarvis! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Mr. Bennet said he liked you! He was being kind!"

"Well, he needn't be kind to me, for I certainly don't want any of his kindness! I can get along a great deal better without it! You can tell him that from me, if you please! And I most certainly didn't like him! He's a four-flusher, for fair, if ever I saw one!"

And before Arethusa had even begun to recover from the Awfulness of this Speech, Timothy of the Sore Heart had run on down the steps, was safe in the automobile, and Clay had driven away with him.

Arethusa could not possibly follow.

But Ross would have stopped her if she had even tried, for he had promised Timothy he might go to the station absolutely alone. Timothy had asked him before breakfast. For once, Arethusa's wishes had been over-ridden; she had made all sorts of loud objections to the carrying out of this idea. But Ross knew, as well as if Timothy had given him his reason for making this request, that the miserable boy who was so sure he was leaving his Life's Happiness, forever, would far rather say a farewell to that Happiness in the presence of folks that he knew to help him keep a grip on himself than to wait until the last moments at the station; those moments when a parting is so surely at hand, that it brings a breaking-down even to those who would be strongest, sometimes.

It was so like Timothy to have the last word and then run away, that after Arethusa got over her violent anger with him for the Words of Blasphemy he had spoken of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, she laughed and laughed at the thought. How many times he had done the very same thing!

Then came what Ross had called the "Real Event of the Season"—that long looked-forward-to January Cotillion.

CHAPTER XXII

The January Cotillion was always held in the very oldest hotel in Lewisburg. All other really fashionable entertainments had long ago ceased to be given there, for it was very far down-town, the heart of the wholesale district had crept up around it, and its character had somewhat changed of late years; but still, January after January, the Cotillion Club continued to give its one yearly and important event within these historic portals. And historic portals they truly were, for the ancient hostelry went back long before the Civil War to trace its beginnings. Dickens was said to have slept under its roof, on his memorable visit to America; duels, in those days when such settlements of affairs of honor were winked at by the law of the community, had not only found the reasons for being duels within these walls, but had actually been fought in that high-ceilinged old lobby. In one or two places could still be seen the traces of bullet marks that had gone wild. The most beautiful woman of her day in America had, in answer to a laughing challenge that she do so, ridden her horse straight up those broad front steps and into the dining-room. The stories in connection with the old hotel were many and varied.

Its ball-room, unlike the ball-rooms in the newer hotels in town, was on the second floor. It was popularly supposed to be built on springs and had long been considered to be the best dancing floor in the South.

No one really remembered now who had first instituted the January Cotillion; just what long ago leader of society had first had the idea. But it was still kept up, just as it had been started, winter after winter; and had so firmly established itself as the real social tradition of Lewisburg that invitations to it were almost fought for, and no one who had one, or could have one (saving Timothy) had ever been known to decline it. Once a year the Lewisburg aristocracy left its familiar haunts and betook itself to this old building by the water's edge to spend an evening of gayety within its dingy walls. There were other dances given here, it is true, by the Sons and Daughters of the Morning, and the Pleasure Club, and the West End Society; but they were frowned upon by the truly socially elect, not one of whom would have wanted to be seen here by acquaintances as a frivoler, except on the one consecrated evening of the year, the second Tuesday in every January.

Arethusa had gathered all of this knowledge concerning the January Cotillion, and she was quite properly impressed to have been invited to attend.

The old ball-room had been made into fairyland for the Occasion, and as Arethusa stood in between the tall fluted columns that flanked its magnificent old doorway on either side, and looked about her, her eyes sparkled with delight. The walls, so sadly in need of a renewal of their frescoing, had been latticed with thin white strips to the edge of the heavy molding on the ceiling, and in this lattice work was twined smilax most lavishly. Bay trees and tall palms had been used to make recesses like little rooms, in several places, and these each seemed to fairly shriek at the beholder, "Do come and sit out a dance in me! That's just what I was put here for! Oh, do come!"

The faded upholstery on the tall, high-backed chairs had been covered over with slips of rose-colored chintz, and in each little recess had been placed a matching sofa. It was a very bad color to be close to Arethusa's hair, but so thoroughly pleasing to see that she never once thought of the other side of it. The crystal-draped chandeliers had all had their electric light bulbs shaded with big, pink tissue-paper roses, and extra lights, similarly shaded, had been scattered throughout the green and the lattice work on the walls. The whole room was bathed in a soft, rosy glow. An orchestra played all unseen behind a thick bank of palms on a little platform at the far end of the room. It had quite the effect of music at a distance.

"Isn't it beautiful!" Arethusa drew a long, long breath of admiration. "Oh, isn't it just beautiful!"

"Yes," replied Mr. Bennet. "The decorations are always rather good."

But his agreement altogether lacked a proper fervency, for he had a wretched cold of the thoroughly uncomfortable kind, and he did not feel fervent about anything in the world.

Arethusa was all solicitude. "You don't feel very well, do you? I'm so sorry! Let's go sit down in one of those dear little places." They had been rather early in their arrival at the January Cotillion, hardly anybody was here as yet. "Wouldn't you like to?" She was almost maternal in her desire to make him as comfortable as possible.

And Mr. Bennet was quite agreeable to the idea of being made comfortable. So they strolled almost the length of the ball-room to find a little recess far enough away from the door, so that Arethusa could be sure there would be no draught to make his cold worse.

The little recess she finally selected was so well screened with green that their occupancy of it on the pink chintz-covered sofa was as effectively hidden from the ball-room proper as if they had actually been in some other apartment. This delighted Arethusa.

"We'll call This One ours," she said, with an air of proprietorship, patting the sofa, "and we'll come back here and sit in it every now and then."

"It would be nice to sit out a dance or two," suggested Mr. Bennet, tentatively.

He was rather inclined to the opinion it would be quite beyond his powers to dance the evening straight through.

His suggestion was received with ecstasy by the Romantic Arethusa. For to sit in this rose-colored recess, side by side on a rose-colored sofa with the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, with a rose-colored glow all over them, while the orchestra played dreamy music afar off and the rest of the world of the Cotillion whirled unconsciously by, appeared to Arethusa as the most that any girl could ask of fate. There was nothing more Perfect as a Situation to be offered to anyone, she was quite positive.

The January Cotillion, in these days of trots and one-steps and hesitations, had of recent seasons become almost a misnomer for this particular party. There was no cotillion at all about it, save for a grand march of all the couples in the early part of the evening, and the fact that favors had remained a feature. But why waste time in the performance of slow figures when one might be joyfully trotting? Yet tradition could by no means dispense with the favors; they were most highly prized. And a feminine person who went through more than three seasons of Lewisburg society without her share of spoils from the January Cotillion, was indisputably a Rank Failure.

But Arethusa had no lack of favors from the very beginning of this affair, thus indicating partners. Her spoils were amply sufficient for her to show in proof that she was a Social Success, and not a Failure. Mr. Bennet was not once forced to exert himself, when he felt so very little like exertion, to find gentlemen who were willing to dance with her; they flocked around her of their own accord. So instead of making any effort to join the romp, after he had performed a Duty in the grand march, he lolled against a pillar by the door and watched it all, which was much more to his taste this particular evening.

A man detached himself, after awhile, from the group of "stags" in the center of the room and strolled over to join Mr. Bennet.

"Don't seem to see you dancing much with the fair Arethusa," he said. "What's the matter, Grid? Feeling anyways seedy?"

"Got a peach of a cold," replied Mr. Bennet.

"Which is plain to be seen, now that I look more closely. You're not nearly so pretty with it, either. Rubs off considerable of your usual irresistible bloom. Beauing Arethusa Worthington for a change, I suppose?"

The afflicted one nodded.

"Well, she's one girl that I know that you never have to bother about showing a time to; she has it all by herself. I'll hand it to her there. So there's no real use in your sticking around up here. Come on down with me and we'll play a round or two of pool. It'll be much better for you than standing up here in this draughty hall."

Mr. Bennet demurred.

"Oh, come on! I've no business clearing out, either, but we won't stay a minute.... It'll do you good."

Just what medicinal properties a game of pool may be said to possess was not made plain, but Mr. Bennet seemed, after a moment or two of thought, inclined to agreement with the idea. He cast a weather eye about for Arethusa, but as her dancing partner had changed since he last observed her, not five whole minutes before, he felt himself perfectly safe in leaving her to her own devices for awhile, while he sought more congenial occupation than that of a mere spectator of the enjoyment of others.

Arethusa saw him, as he turned away from the ball-room door and his shapely back disappeared down the hall, and her warm heart smote her at the sight.

"He feels just perfectly rotten, I know!"

And she.... She was dancing around gayly, enjoying herself leaving him so wretched and alone! She visioned him stretched out somewhere in another room on a lumpy hotel sofa, suffering!

She grew so distraught as this vision broadened in its scope as to the Misery of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, that she missed step with Billy Watts, with whom she was dancing, entirely. She then stepped squarely on his foot, and missed the time again. And it was not only once or twice she did this most unpardonable thing, but three distinct times in quick succession.

Billy stopped short in the middle of the floor, disgusted.

"See here, Arethusa, what's the matter with you? I've asked you the same question about sixty times, and you've just been climbing all over me!"

Billy had somewhat adopted Timothy's tone with Arethusa. They were the oldest and best of friends by now, and he gave himself all the privileges of such a friend. Arethusa liked it ... generally.

She was most apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Billy." (She knew him quite well enough after these weeks to drop the formal, "Mr. Watts.") "I wasn't thinking about my feet just then. I was worrying about Mr. Bennet, He's real sick tonight, and he just went out somewhere. Do you reckon I'd better go see what's the matter with him?"

"Well, of all things!" Billy seized her forcibly around the waist and swung her back into the throng of dancers. "There's nothing the matter with that nut! He's probably off enjoying himself in his own sweet way."

But Arethusa wrenched herself away from his grasp; her quick anger flared.

"You just take that back right now, Billy Watts! Mr. Bennet's not a nut. And he's sick, he told me so himself! If you don't take it back, I won't dance another step with you, not one!"

Billy laughed, good-naturedly. "I didn't say he wasn't sick, did I? But you don't have to trail around after him nursing him; he's plenty old enough, and ugly enough to take care of himself."

"Billy Watts! You are perfectly horrid!"

"Oh, come on, Arethusa, and stop getting all up in the air over nothing!" He took hold of her again, but she jerked angrily away. "Don't be a goose," he added, "everybody in the room's looking at you!"

"I don't care a bit if they are!"

"Do you want me to run out and look up your sick friend and hold his head or anything? I will, if it'll please you very much! Because I sure didn't mean to set you off like this! Come on now, Arethusa, and be a better sport!"

This offer to go look after the suffering Mr. Bennet, although of a wording hardly as respectful as she considered seemly, mollified Arethusa to the extent of finishing out this dance with Billy. But it was not at all necessary that he actually carry out his offer when the dance was really over, for just as the last strains of music were sounding, Mr. Bennet re-appeared from the direction of the hall.

Arethusa left Billy abruptly, standing open-mouthed in the middle of the floor at the suddenness of her departure, and without a single word of apology for leaving him, to greet Mr. Bennet with outstretched hands and anxious inquiry into the state of his immediate physical being. The answer was reassuring and one calculated to raise her spirits. Mr. Bennet believed he felt much better. Arethusa beamed.

"Do you want to dance this with me?" asked Mr. Bennet, then; for just at that very moment the music started once more.

"Do you feel well enough to be dancing?" Anxiety and solicitude were in voice and manner.

"Yes, indeed. It seems to me I haven't danced with you to amount to anything this evening. And I couldn't let it all slip by that way. What's the use of being here with you, if other men have all the pleasure?"

Arethusa blushed.

And off they started together to the sound of a waltz that could not have helped but make the stiffest possible person dance like an angel, no matter how badly he might have danced before hearing this particular tune. It was a strain of melody with a haunting tinge of delicious melancholy. It aroused all sorts of queer, indistinct little longings, and aching memories of other happy times irretrievably past. Its sound seemed meant to dream by, or to make love by; ordinary speech seemed a real sacrilege while it quivered in the air.

Mr. Bennet had a little way when he danced with Arethusa (or when he danced with any girl alive for that matter, although she did not know this) of making it seem as though he thought that they were the one and only couple in all Christendom who had ever danced together for the dance to amount to anything worth remembering; as though she were the only girl he had ever really cared to dance with; and as though now, with bodies tuned to the one strain of those violins sobbing their soft refrain over and over, he had reached Paradise with the girl in his arms.

The music stopped.

Arethusa sighed with a funny little catch of her breath. "That ... that sounded just like Heaven," she said, softly.

Mr. Bennet bent his handsome head. "Was it only the music?" he asked.

He could not help asking it, and asking it just exactly as he did.

Arethusa laughed, it was a most subdued little sound of embarrassment, and her only answer. And partly the spell of that wonderful music, and partly her quaint worship of the man standing beside her, made her wish to get away from the crowd and their chattering talk of nothings for a wee while.

"Let's go sit in our little room," she suggested, with a bit of emphasis on the "our."

An encore to that waltz was starting just as they reached the entrance to the green recess, and Mr. Bennet hesitated. "Shall we go back and try this?"

But Arethusa shook her head.

She had a vague feeling that no other Waltz in all her life, no matter how many more she might dance hereafter, was ever going to be as perfect as the One just danced had been. And she could not spoil its memory by so immediately dancing another waltz to the very same tune. So they went instead into the little recess and sat down on the rose-colored sofa, side by side, and without saying a word for a long time. Such music demanded silence, especially when listened to in such a setting. And the rose-colored lights threw the softest sort of glow all over them.

Mr. Bennet reclined a little in his corner of the sofa, with his feet gracefully outstretched and his ankles crossed, his arms folded, watching Arethusa, for her head was downcast and turned away from him, and she could not know that he was watching her. He smiled a bit as he always did whenever he watched her this way when she was not noticing.

But Arethusa may have felt his look, although she did not turn around to really see it, or it may have been those shy little thoughts of him which were at the moment filling her head which caused it, for a soft flush suddenly ran all over her neck, and even up behind her ears. Mr. Bennet's smile broadened, perceptibly.

If anyone had asked him just then what he thought of Arethusa, he would have said that she was a very pretty girl, in his opinion; the prettiest girl, in fact, that he had known for some time. Mr. Bennet had even found himself wondering, on several occasions lately, if he was not beginning to think too much of Arethusa and her prettiness; just a little bit more than was quite wise, from his own point of view. There was very open admiration in his face as he studied her now. He noticed the tiny curls at the back of her neck, warm from dancing to be twisted in the tightest little rings; they were the most babyish looking little curls he had ever seen, he thought. And he distinctly liked that proud little way she carried her head. He moved just a trifle, then, so that he could see more of her face; how her extraordinarily long lashes swept her cheek, and her adorable nose, which was ever so slightly retroussée. Timothy, in some of those moments when Arethusa was inclined to be most trying, had called it a "pug nose," but Mr. Bennet's ideas were much more poetical. And he could see her mouth, with her red lips curved in a slight smile; Arethusa had a very pretty mouth.

And then quite suddenly, without himself having any really preconceived idea that he was going to do such a thing, Mr. Bennet leaned over and kissed Arethusa. He kissed her square on her sweet mouth.

And almost immediately, he kissed her the second time.

Arethusa had been startled by his first kiss, very naturally; it had broken rudely into her shy dreams to scatter them far away and bring her back to reality. But she returned his second salutation with all of her young soul. Then she sprang up from the sofa, gently disengaging herself from the arm he had half slipped around her.

"Now, you mustn't kiss me any more," she said, with a quaint air of authority.

Mr. Bennet was somewhat startled by this, himself; and then rather amused. He had hardly intended to do so again, being a trifle ashamed of himself already, but Arethusa's reasons for anything were always original.

"Why not?" he enquired.

"Because...." She blushed deeply, rosy-red.

"Because what?"

"Because...." She looked down for just a moment, then raised her head with an adorable air of dignity most becoming, "you mustn't kiss me any more until after we're married. Aunt 'Liza always says a girl mustn't!"

"Married!" The thoroughly startled Mr. Bennet sank backward on the pink sofa. "Why...."

"Yes," repeated Arethusa. Then something in his expression suddenly frightened her; her face went chalk white. "Why.... Why did you.... Didn't you...."

"I think you've misunderstood me," began Mr. Bennet, gently, "I didn't mean...." Then he stopped awkwardly. For once in his life the Wonderful Mr. Bennet was at an utter loss for the words with which to continue a conversation with a lady.

"You ki ... kissed me," said Arethusa.

But Mr. Bennet made no reply. It was a Fact which it was unnecessary to confirm, and could not be denied.

"And di ... didn't you ... you mean," she continued slowly, "that you wanted to marry me?" She brought each word of this question out with difficulty. "I thought me ... men never kissed girls that way unless they wanted to marry them?" This last was also an interrogation.

"No," replied Mr. Bennet, uncomfortably, "not necessarily."

She began backing away from him, her eyes fixed upon him, wide with a sort of horror.

"My dear child...."

"I'm not your dear child!" Arethusa was suddenly so angry that she trembled with rage from head to foot. "Don't come anywhere near me," she exploded, as Mr. Bennet started towards her.

She stuck her hands straight out in front of her as if to push him away, and Mr. Bennet stopped short where he was.

"If you'll let me explain," he said, "I think I can. I didn't.... That is, I'm just as sorry as I can be. And I really didn't mean a single thing!" But this was a very wrong beginning.

It made matters, already bad enough, very much worse. He had Kissed her and he had Not Meant a Single Thing! There was Deep Disgrace for Arethusa in this simple declaration.

Now Arethusa's rearing by Miss Eliza had been according to a few very simple Rules for Conduct, which were nevertheless as ironbound and unalterable as the most complicated laws that were ever framed. And one of those Rules was that no really Nice girl would ever permit herself to be kissed by a man unless she had every intention of marrying him immediately or was already married to him. Miss Eliza had often said that she would far rather see Arethusa dead and cold in her coffin than to see her the sort of girl who thought so little of herself as to kiss a man she was not to marry. This was really at the bottom of Arethusa's expressed objection to being kissed by Timothy on those occasions when such unexpected conduct of his had so displeased her. She had no intention of ever marrying Timothy, whatever his own intentions might have been; therefore, it seemed to Arethusa, according to this Miss Elizian Guide for the Proper Behavior of Nice Young Ladies, it was wrong for him to salute her in any such fashion, or for her to permit him to. It is true that she had kissed Timothy herself under the stress of such excitement as arrivals and departures, but such salutations were really in a class quite apart, and of their own.

Into the Kiss she had given Mr. Bennet, Arethusa had put her construction of the meaning of his unexpected action founded upon these ideas of kisses, and her sentiments in regard to him, and all the thoughts and dreams about him in which she had linked their two selves together: only to find that Mr. Bennet himself had no such ideas of kisses, and had evidently had no such thoughts and dreams. Is there any one to wonder at her sudden feeling of humiliation? She rubbed fiercely at her lips with the back of one hand, as if to remove the visible and outward sign of her feeling of Disgrace. Then the color surged back into her face; and once more, hot Rage mounted high, flashing its signal from her stormy eyes and quick breathing.

"I hate you!" she exclaimed, suddenly, "Oh.... I hate you!"

"Please listen to me just a moment, Arethusa. I...."

"Don't say anything to me!" She stamped one foot with angry emphasis. "I won't listen! I don't want to hear anything you have to say! And Timothy was exactly right about you! Oh...!"

She flung herself face downward on the rose-colored sofa and began to sob violently, her shoulders quivering; burying her head farther and farther back into the corner of the sofa until it seemed more like a piled up heap of party finery huddled there than an actual girl.

This was truly Dreadful!

Mr. Bennet stood, man-fashion, helplessly above her, with an overpowering desire to flee far from those tears; and yet with a strong conviction, at the same time, that he ought to stay and at least attempt a justification of what had been so sadly misconstrued, if there was any earthly way in which it could be justified. He was willing to say, or to do, anything which she might demand of him, to straighten it out. The sobs decreased in intensity and so Mr. Bennet spoke.

"Arethusa...." he began.

Then Arethusa's sobs stopped altogether as abruptly almost as they had begun, and she rose majestically from the sofa, keeping her tear-stained face averted.

"I asked you not to speak to me. And I'm going home," not once did she look, even in his direction. "By myself," she added, positively.

"I can't let you do a thing like that...."

"It has nothing whatever to do with what you can't let, and I shall scream out loud right here, if you start to try to follow me!"

"Will you let me apologize then, at least, before you go? If you insist on going?"

"No, you can't apologize. I don't want a single one of your apologies."

Mr. Bennet felt as weak as the proverbial water in the face of such personified determination as was Arethusa. He meekly permitted her to leave the little recess of palms and to fly across the ball room floor while he stood as one hypnotized without moving. When he had recovered his powers of locomotion sufficiently to follow, she was just coming out of the dressing room door wrapped in her green cloak. The sight of the green cloak almost unnerved him again. He had not dreamed that the child would carry out her wild plan of going home. He had thought that she might retire to the dressing-room for awhile, but that she would surely recover before many moments were flown. He took one or two half-hearted steps forward. The Wonderful Mr. Bennet had no precedent established for his guidance in this predicament. He was all at sea; no such situation had ever befallen him before. Arethusa was the only lady he had ever taken to a Party who had gone home without him. Would decided pursuit be too undignified; or could he risk a Scene?

Arethusa caught a glimpse of him in his uncertain regard of her, as he stood near the ball-room entrance, and off she flew like the wind in the direction she judged the stairs to be, luckily finding them right there; for she could not risk the waiting for the elevator to come up and get her. He should not be given the slightest opportunity to speak to her again!

She plunged madly down one long flight of wide steps, broken by several landings, to find herself in the wide old lobby, where the startled night clerk was aroused from his dozing, for this ancient inn was far from lively at this hour of the night especially in this part of it, by her sudden entrance; and he went to hunt for Clay at her breathless request. Very fortunately, for Arethusa's impulsive departing, he had not driven off anywhere, but was easily located by the obliging clerk among a small group of chauffeurs who were lounging in the barber shop; while Arethusa waited impatiently in the lobby, casting fearful glances in the direction of first the stairs and then the elevator, fully expectant of seeing Mr. Bennet appear from either direction. Clay was slightly mystified at this sudden summons, so early in the evening, but like a good chauffeur and the friend of Arethusa's which he so truly was, he asked no questions; and unfastened the back door for her, having driven in the back way without a word of comment. Arethusa knew that Ross and Elinor would still be up at this early hour, within hearing of the opening of the front door, and she wanted to slip into the house without their knowledge. She was quite sure that their interrogations would fall fast and furious; a natural curiosity which would have to be gratified as to the Reason for this unexpectedly early return from the Real Event of the Season.

It was a Silent and Miserable Maiden who thus went home so prematurely from what was to have been the most Marvelous Affair ever attended, huddled back into one corner of the limousine; and it was a still more Silent and Miserable Maiden who crept softly up the back stairs and sought her room, where she undressed entirely in the dark and climbed immediately into bed.

And the grey hours of the dawning found her still wakeful under the same green silk coverlid beneath which she had slept so many, many nights with Happy Dreaming of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet and his very great Charm.

CHAPTER XXIII

This was the very first night in all of her healthy young life that Arethusa did not go to sleep just as soon as her head had touched the pillow.

Over and over again her active imagination re-lived for her that scene with Mr. Bennet, and her whole body seemed to burn with the Disgrace of his Kiss. She writhed and twisted and turned in her bed, but she could not get away from the Shame of it, anywhere; and the way Mr. Bennet had looked when he had said she had misunderstood him.

Miss Eliza's convictions upon all subjects were most decided, but on no single subject were they more decided than on this very one of a Kiss. No Decent Woman, said Miss Eliza with a terrible emphasis, would allow a man's lips to Touch hers, or permit him to embrace her, unless there were Matrimonial Intentions.

But poor Arethusa's Intentions had all been Matrimonial, however Mr. Bennet's, for with all her heart she had given of her very best. Her shy building of air castles for the Perfect Bliss of Two, through all these golden weeks just past, superinduced, one might say, by Mr. Bennet's attitude of unmistakable delight in her companionship, had led to this catastrophe of a misunderstanding.

And as the hours wore on the feeling of humiliation at having so misunderstood with her thought that he had wanted to marry her when he had Kissed her, grew and grew until it was almost unbearable.

Then, quite suddenly, she sat bolt upright in bed. For an Idea concerning Mr. Bennet, no longer prefixed the Wonderful, had wormed itself into her brain without her having the slightest conception how it had got there, and now it presented itself to her, fully formed.

Mr. Bennet was very decidedly one of the very sort of men Miss Eliza had been so careful to warn her against!

He was one of those Awful Male Beings who were nice to girls to win their affections, only to deceive them!

No one in the world could have been nicer to any girl than Mr. Bennet had been to her! And he had most certainly won her Affections! And she had most certainly been completely deceived! His had been the Kiss of a Judas! So Arethusa would undoubtedly have named it had she known any of the classification of Kisses. But one thing about the Whole Affair loomed Large and Certain; she had gone contrary to Miss Eliza's Expressed Wishes once more! And this time, it was with what Dire Results!

This made it twice that she had lapsed from the path pointed out for her treading in her intercourse with the members of the other sex; the man on the train, and now ... Mr. Bennet! The man of the train appeared before Arethusa at the moment. She had thought him such a nice man, until superior wisdom had informed her differently. Yet that affair had ended comparatively smoothly, thanks to Mrs. Cherry. There was no punishment Miss Eliza could fairly inflict for that, beyond scolding a little. But this! What would Miss Eliza ever do if she found this out? And Arethusa had thought Mr. Bennet a Nice man also. Nay, more than merely nice; he had seemed Perfect. It was quite plain to Arethusa that she knew nothing whatever about men. The best thing for her to do hereafter would be walk in directions where they were not to be found.

Arethusa decided, going back to the very beginning for about the hundredth time, and reviewing this Affair in this new light of Miss Eliza's regard of it, that her lips had best be locked so closely together in regard to her Fall from Grace that Inquisitional Torture would not be strong enough to force it from her.

No, whatever happened hereafter under her eagle eye that so little escaped, to cause the pouring forth of the vials of her wrath upon Arethusa's head, Miss Eliza must never, never know of the Bennet Escapade. And further considering It, from the other angle of her deep humiliation of having misunderstood, she also decided that no human being should ever learn, from her own lips, of the Great Shame that had befallen the daughter of the House of Worthington this Fatal Evening of the January Cotillion.

The first wan light of dawn struggling through her half drawn blinds found Arethusa thus, still wakeful, and still miserably thoughtful; but a little while after she had heard the first milkman's cart rattle past in the street, she fell into a troubled slumber of vague, unpleasant dreams that made her toss and mutter in her sleep. They were Dreams of Miss Eliza's fury in a personified form, and of Mr. Bennet, cloven-hoofed, with horns upon his handsome head and grinning as diabolically as any fiend (that half-sad, half-sweet smile of his she had so loved distorted thus!) both of which phantoms pursued her wheresoever she fled in her dreaming to escape them, even to the uttermost parts of the earth; sometimes they were together in pursuit, and sometimes they pursued singly. But they gave her no chance to get away from either of them.

She slept straight on through the breakfast hour, for they rarely disturbed her when she had been to a party the night before, and did not waken until nearly noon. Then for a long while she lay there conscious that something Terrible had happened to her, but not wholly conscious, through the heaviness of her waking, just what it was. But it dawned upon her fully in time, and she turned and buried her face in her pillow with a little miserable cry.

It was the greyest sort of day, a real January day, with leaden clouds that hung low to the earth. Snow clouds, they would have called them at the Farm. When Arethusa looked out of the window, she was glad that the sun was not shining: for what a mockery of Absolute Unhappiness a sunshiny day would have seemed!

She dragged herself out of bed, and dressed herself slowly; it was as if she were trying to postpone her inevitable appearance in public as long as possible. When she had finished she stood and stared intently at herself in the mirror. In such reality were the shame and humiliation of the night just past still with her, that she could not be sure that the roundness of that Kiss did not show plainly on her lips for the observation of all beholders. But even her closest scrutiny could not detect anything actually visibly different about her mouth, though her eyes had unaccustomed deep shadows painted darkly under them, and her face looked queerly white and drawn.

Arethusa drew herself to her fullest height and shook her shoulders decidedly once or twice; Ross and Elinor must not know about This. They must not even be permitted to suspect that anything was wrong.

They were just starting luncheon when she went downstairs.

Elinor glanced at Arethusa who came slowly into the little breakfast room, where they always lunched, to greet her gayly.

"Did you have a good...." she began with eagerness, but she stopped when she noticed those dark circles under the grey eyes, and her own eyes widened in alarm, "Why, Arethusa, dearest, what on earth has happened?"

And Arethusa, completely unnerved by the kindness of the anxious tone, flew across the room and flopped down on the floor by Elinor's chair, to bury her head in Elinor's lap and weep uncontrollably.

Over her bent red head, Ross and Elinor exchanged a few eyebrow telegrams which could be translated easily as, "Gridley Bennet."

No one spoke to the sorrowing Arethusa though, and her mother stroked her hair softly to help her somewhat toward a recovery. But after awhile muffled words became distinguishable through the sobs.

"I want to go home! Oh, I want to go home! Mayn't I go home?"

"Do you mean back to the Farm, dear?" asked Elinor, with a nod in Ross's direction which meant that she was quite sure that Mr. Bennet was at the bottom of all this suffering.

Arethusa's own nod of affirmation to the question was so violent that it shook out several hairpins.

"Well, we'll see about it. Suppose you eat some lunch now, and you'll feel much better. Then we can talk it over."

"I don't want any lunch!" Arethusa raised her head and looked tragically up into the kind face which was bending over her, "I want to go home now, today. I want," and a deep sob shook her voice again, "I want Aunt 'Senath!"

"But you can't possibly go to-day, Arethusa," it was Ross who spoke this time. "There are no more trains that you could take to-day, except one that gets you home at midnight; none until to-morrow morning. Will," smiling slightly, "will to-morrow morning be soon enough to leave us? Do you think you can continue to put up with us for that little bit of a while longer?"

But his daughter made no sort of response to this attempt at levity; her face was soberness itself.

"Couldn't you tell me what is troubling you, dear?" Elinor's sweet voice was all sympathy. "Could I help you in any way? You know I'd gladly do all I can. And perhaps, if you tell me...."

Then the grey eyes filled with tears once more, some of which brimmed clear over; but Arethusa shook her head to that kind offer to share the burden of her woe. She could not tell Elinor about it. It would be absolutely impossible.

She could not tell anyone about it.

She would not be able to tell even Miss Asenath whom she wanted so intensely. But since she was the very tiniest scrap she had snuggled close up to Miss Asenath on her couch when troubles came. And she wanted (oh, how terribly she wanted it!) to snuggle up on that couch right now; and it was so very far away! Miss Asenath had somehow always understood things which were hard to put in words, without Arethusa having to make any effort to put them in words. And in her present miserable state, she felt that Miss Asenath, with her gentle understanding, was the only person in the whole world who would be able to make her feel less miserable without having to be told what had specifically caused the misery. No matter how much Miss Eliza had ever punished her for misdeeds in the past, no matter how bad she might have been, Miss Asenath had always loved and wanted Arethusa to come and snuggle up to her that the sorrow might be comforted into nothing. No childish disgrace of former years had ever been black enough to change her feeling for the culprit.

Arethusa clung to the thought of Miss Asenath.

But lacking her right at this moment, she continued to sit on the floor at Elinor's feet, and Elinor's kind hand lovingly patted her back into a certain semblance of composure. George stood disapprovingly over by the pantry door. There were times for everything, considered George, and any mealtime was the time to be eating. An excellent lunch was getting cold while Miss Arethusa sat on the floor; good food was being wasted.

"Miss Arethusa's soup will be quite cold," he suggested, after a few moments. George was an old family servant, and he had Certain Privileges. "Shall I bring another plate?"

"So it is!" exclaimed Elinor. "Yes, suppose you do, George. And, Arethusa dear, you must really eat your lunch. Or breakfast, if you'd rather call it what it is for you. I think it will make you feel much better."

But Arethusa was all unresponsive to Elinor's tiny bit of friendly levity also; her face was still sober. Yet she obediently got up from the floor and seated herself at the table to eat the steaming plate of soup which George immediately brought. And it went down her throat much easier than she had imagined any sort of food would go; her throat had seemed so contracted and full of painful lumps. As she ate, her healthy young appetite began to assert itself, and she finished all of her soup and made a very good meal besides. Some of the color came back into her white face.

After lunch, Ross took her into the library with him. He could not bear to see her so strange and quiet and he hated that curious look of misery so foreign to her young eyes.

"Suppose you tell me about it, daughter, couldn't you?" he asked, when he had settled her comfortably in a big chair in front of the fire and seated himself on the arm of it with one of his arms protectingly across the back.

Arethusa wept stormily again.

But she could not possibly tell him about it.

For he was certain to be terribly angry with her, and no telling what he might do to Mr. Bennet. Fathers surely had some way of punishing men for Disgraced Daughters. It was not that any lingering affection for Mr. Bennet made her thus anxious to shield him from any consequences which might be legitimately his for the way he had acted; but everyone might hear of it then, and incidentally.... It might reach Miss Eliza.

Ross could not help smiling as he looked down at his daughter, sitting there with the warm firelight playing over her. She looked so young, so altogether young, with her slimness and her tumbled hair, and her childishly quivering red mouth, for all that great unhappiness in her eyes. And even if she would not tell him the exact nature of her trouble, Ross was almost positive that he knew what it was. He was well acquainted with Mr. Bennet, and with Arethusa and Arethusa's worship of Mr. Bennet, and he had had for some time a rather shrewd idea that Mr. Bennet really thought a great deal of Arethusa. He knew also what sometimes happened at dances, especially in rose bowers as romantic as those that were always a feature of the January Cotillion; Ross had been to dances himself, in his day, where there had been the equivalent of Romantic Rose Bowers, in moons and balconies. It was all the same. He also knew very well just what Miss Eliza's ideas were about such things, he knew that most of this unhappiness over what had happened was really due to Miss Eliza's rearing; yet Ross was not going to say a word which would disclose all of this varied knowledge of his.

Further knowledge he was positive he possessed was that Arethusa would recover before very long. If she really insisted on going back to the Farm, Timothy was there to help in the recovery. He would undoubtedly be of assistance along this line. This last thought almost made Ross laugh aloud.

But Ross was not so aware as he imagined he was of just the way his daughter felt. For it did not occur to him, for an instant, that Arethusa's whole idea of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet had changed; that now she saw him, instead of as the one Perfect Human Being in a very faulty world, as a Ravening Wolf ranging within the supposedly Safe Folds of Society seeking whom he might Devour, all unknown to the parents of his Innocent Victims; that she felt so deeply humiliated at having misunderstood Mr. Bennet's Intentions, and at having misconstrued them to be as Matrimonial as her own; and so deeply disgraced at being Kissed by him, such a Man as he had proved himself to be; and so completely terror-stricken at the Bare Idea of Miss Eliza finding out the very least bit of all this: that Arethusa could almost have been torn limb from limb to have kept such knowledge from her aunt.

No, Ross's understanding did not extend itself to any of this.

But he sat in front of the wood fire with her, in the same big chair with his arm around her, silently, as seemed to suit her mood; and every now and then he patted her a little on the shoulder, as lovingly as Elinor had patted her, to let her know that she was to feel sure of his sympathy, even if she could not bring herself to confide in him, and that he was still right there, and at her service, whenever she should want him. Arethusa loved to have him with her; it was delightful, just the two of them together so cozily; but every one of his soft fatherly pats brought her near to tears as she felt it, for she knew herself so very unworthy to receive it.

George appeared in the library about half-past three, bearing under one arm an enormous flower box and in the other hand a card-tray with one small white slip of cardboard upon it.

"Mr. Bennet to see Miss Arethusa," he announced.

Arethusa sprang up, almost overturning Ross.

"Who did you say, George?"

"Mr. Bennet." He extended the card-tray, and then the flower box.

"I won't see Mr. Bennet!" exclaimed Arethusa, all over pride at once, and drawing herself up.

"Very well, Miss Arethusa."

George turned to go, but Ross stopped him.

"Wait just a moment, George. Are you quite sure, daughter, that you hadn't better see him?"

Arethusa's eyes flashed.

"I won't see him, Father! I ... I...." she fairly choked over the words, her utterance was so intense, "I hate him! I never want to see him again as long as I live!"

George looked inquiringly at Mr. Worthington; this was no message for him to be carrying to the gentleman in the reception room.

"Tell Mr. Bennet, George," said Ross, in answer to the look, for he knew that the butler wished the conventions observed on every occasion, and he was half smiling as he said it, "Tell Mr. Bennet that Miss Arethusa wishes to be excused."

George bowed,—this was much better—and disappeared.

Arethusa waited, standing poised with a queer little expression of strained attention, until she heard the front door close; then she sighed, a soft sigh unmistakably of relief.

Mr. Bennet turned away from the Worthington House uncertainly. He was half of a mind to go right straight back and try to see Arethusa once more. He was very sorry about last night. He was remorsefully sorry, when the day had fully come. He would not have thought that Arethusa would be inclined to view such an episode as she so very evidently had. And yet, on further intensive consideration, he realized that if he had stopped beforehand to give any real thought to it, at all, he might have known that she would take it in just the way she had.

There was nothing really horrid about Mr. Bennet. It is to be doubted if he had ever had a really horrid thought in all his life; but he could not help looking like a man in a collar advertisement and he was born with his manner. He was not himself to blame if young and impressionable things feminine insisted upon falling in love with him. Who could blame him for accepting such admiration and attempting, at times, what might be considered as a slight return? Most of us like to be admired. Mr. Bennet's biggest fault was that he was a little selfish; right now, it was no larger cloud on the horizon of his perfection than might be compared to the palm of one's hand, but owing to all this admiration he so constantly received, and the fact that he did not have to exert himself very much to make a cause for popularity, the little cloud was growing.

But Mr. Bennet was really almost as unhappy over this affair as Arethusa herself, after he went over it again very carefully, in the garish light of perspective. Yet he had thought of course he would be permitted to explain at his call this afternoon; that is, explain in so far as he could explain. Which would surely make it all right. He was even prepared to explain to Ross, if it was necessary, and although Mr. Bennet realized that it would not put him in such a very good light in the eyes of Arethusa's father, he felt that Mr. Worthington might understand. And to explain to Ross and to appear so undignified as he was bound to appear, would have been a very hard thing for Mr. Bennet to do, but he was quite prepared to do it; so anxious he was to straighten out this very Miserable Business.

Then Mr. Bennet, as he sorrowfully walked in all the bravery of a most careful toilette made especially for this important call, remembered the little air of dignity with which Arethusa had mentioned marriage. He was genuinely fond of Arethusa. If it had not been for that little cloud of selfishness, no bigger than the palm of one's hand, which was keeping him so much in love with Mr. Bennet, he might have been really in love with her. But there was not quite enough room for Arethusa, although she had crowded into his heart enough for him to give a great deal of thought to her.

"She's a dear," he said aloud, "a perfect dear! And I'm just as sorry as the deuce! But any other girl...."

And he poked his slender cane so deep in between the bricks of the old-fashioned sidewalk of this conservative neighborhood that it was wrenched out of his hand and stood there quivering, and in his pre-occupation with the idea of Arethusa he had gone on without it before he realized.

But then ... Arethusa was not any other girl, and she had had an Aunt Eliza.

"Open the flower box," suggested Ross, "and let's see who they're from."

It was a truly marvelous box of blue violets then disclosed to Arethusa's enraptured gaze. She almost forgot her unhappiness in sheer joy of the wonder of their beauty and fragrance. They were like waxen things in the absolute perfection of their tiny petals; and there seemed to be hundreds of them, each as perfect as a violet ever was, smiling at her with friendly blue faces.

No clue to the sender could be found at first, for no card was visible. She and Ross hunted all through the box, and finally, way down in one corner under the paper, she discovered a damp white scrap.

"Mr. Gridley Warfield Bennet," it read, in irreproachably correct Old English Script.

Into the fire immediately went flowers and box and card, and Arethusa flopped herself back into her chair and buried her head deep to weep such scalding tears as Niobe, synonym for those who really weep, could not have scorned to be seen weeping. Mingled with these tears was more than a trifle of regret that violets so supremely beautiful must be absolutely destroyed because the gift of such a Man!

Arethusa remained determined to go home, and as she really seemed to want to see Miss Asenath so much, Elinor made no attempt to dissuade her of her purpose beyond reminding her of the parties she was sure to miss by rushing off so suddenly. There were several during this very week that Arethusa had been looking forward to. But Parties had no real attraction for Arethusa now; their prospect failed to move her in the least. She only desired to get away as quickly as possible from all the scenes in any way connected with the late Wonderful Mr. Bennet; and to avoid encounters with any of those friends of hers who might be at all likely to guess what had happened. Arethusa felt as if she could not bear to meet Billy Watts again, or the still faithful Mr. Harrison; or any single, solitary one of the boys and girls she had come to know so well these last few weeks. They had all teased her for her adoration of Mr. Bennet, and as friendly as that teasing surely was, she could not trust herself to face it again.

And so, early the very next morning, she took the train for Home. She had so much more to put in her little trunk than she had had when she came that Elinor had sent down town and got her a brand new one to take with her instead, and she carried, as a successor to the ancient handbag with which she had come, a smart little traveling case all fitted out inside, that had been one of her gifts for Christmas. But some dim idea of not hurting Miss Letitia's feelings made her don for this returning journey the quaint little blue suit her aunt had made her.

Everyone in that big house, from Ross and Elinor on down the scale of its inmates to even the outside man who cut the grass and hedges in the summer and cared for the furnace in the winter, was sorry to see her leave them. George forgot his immeasurable dignity as a butler long enough for an excited display of real feeling in begging her most earnestly "to come back again, real soon." Nettie was red-eyed as she packed, the trunk. She would miss Arethusa dreadfully. She was young, and she loved Parties as much as the debutante herself, and it was almost as good as going to them to help Miss Arethusa get ready for them, and then to hear such glowing and vivid descriptions of those Festivities as hers were when she returned home. Clay could hardly guide his car. He, also, was going to miss Arethusa dreadfully.

"You must come back, Arethusa," said Elinor, over and over again. "You must be sure to come back, and soon. For this is just as much your home as that, you know, dear."

And Arethusa promised that she would. She surely did mean to come back, some day. But right now she only wanted Miss Asenath.

The returning traveller was armed, as well as with her legitimate luggage, with a huge box of candy with a flamboyantly colored lady on its top, the shy gift of Clay; a bunch of violets identically like the ones which had to be destroyed yesterday, from Ross; and a most superior package of lunch that Rosalia, most marvelous of cooks, had prepared every bit with her own hands. This really had more significance than either of those other gifts, for it was considerable of a condescension for Rosalia.

Ross put her and all her belongings directly into the charge of the conductor and asked him to please see that she was comfortable every moment, and then the train pulled out. And it pulled out bearing such a different Arethusa from the one who had started to the city so happily and so confident of a Wonderful Time, barely three months ago. But it actually seemed much more like three years to Arethusa, when she considered all that happened to her in that short calendar space.

But after all, as those wheels revolved, faster and faster, it was hard to remain wholly unhappy. She was going back to the Farm and to the warmest sort of welcome from all of them there, she knew; even if she had been guilty of that which would have Miss Eliza's heartiest condemnation should it ever come to her ears. And how glad she, Arethusa, was that she was so soon going to see the folks at the Farm! She was really a little homesick now, for almost the first time since the twenty-fifth of October.

There was no Mrs. Cherry to entertain on this train, and as Arethusa was well worn out with excitement, the whole of the latter half of her journey she slept; and she only woke when the fatherly old conductor bent over her to tell her she had reached Vandalia.

CHAPTER XXIV

Arethusa stood on top of the stile a moment or two and surveyed the old House with eyes that saw none too clearly anything that was before them, before she climbed down; yet she had no real need to actually see it, she knew it all, in every well-loved detail, so well.

It stood there, facing the West, and hugging the earth with that curious appearance of having grown in its place like some sort of solid plant, the green blinds every one swung hospitably open. The January sun was far down in the afternoon sky, and its golden light was reflected in every small and shining square of the square-paned front windows, to make each twinkling pane seem to be smiling a welcome.

And it was all just as neat and precise as ever, although in winter garb instead of that of summer. For the clematis vine over the front porch was a matted heap of dead tendrils (they had died for the season in an orderly way, however) and the little garden at one end of the House was all covered over with straw for the cold weather, and queer little miniature straw stacks were bound around all the rose bushes. Miss Eliza's roses were never known to die during the winter. Only the honeysuckle vine retained its greenness. All the dead leaves had been raked out of the yard, and although the trees stood as gaunt and bare as any other trees at this time of the year, they did not seem naked like other trees. They leaned protectingly towards the house, and they seemed to welcome Arethusa too.

Through the lower windows with their looped white curtains, Arethusa caught a glimpse of the flickering of the sitting-room fire, that fire which warmed Miss Asenath. After all, as dear as Ross and Elinor had proved to be, and as much as she truly loved them, this was Home, as Timothy and Miss Eliza had declared. And how good it was to see it all once more. She had never really known before just how much it meant to her!

Miss Eliza had met her at the station and had scolded her vigorously (scolding sometimes meant that Miss Eliza was trying to control her feelings) nearly all of the six miles from Vandalia, because Arethusa looked so badly, in Miss Eliza's opinion.

"I knew no earthly good would come of it," she said, with a satisfied, I-told-you-so air. "You've come back home sick, after gallivanting around in the city, for me to nurse. And my hands full as they are! I knew just exactly how it would be!"

But Arethusa did not mind this scolding. It was really so much a part of the Home atmosphere that she even rather welcomed it. And she needed a scolding, she felt, so she might as well have it for one thing as for another. This was a mere bagatelle to what Miss Eliza would say if she knew What had happened at the January Cotillion!

Arethusa received her tirade with such unusual meekness that Miss Eliza was alarmed immediately, and convinced that the girl was actually sick.

While the returned wanderer stood on the stile, gazing at the House, the front door flew open and Miss Letitia bustled out, arms outstretched. She almost ran to meet Arethusa. She could not move very fast with such a fat little figure as hers, but she moved faster than she had moved for some years past. And Arethusa dropped every single thing she held and flew down the walk and met Miss Letitia before she was really fairly started.

"Oh, Aunt 'Titia, Aunt 'Titia!"

"There, there," crooned Miss Letitia. "My! My! But we're all glad to get you back! Sister 'Senath's done absolutely nothing but watch the clock ever since we got your father's telegram you were coming. Why, Dearie!" For Arethusa was crying openly on Miss Letitia's comfortable shoulder.

"Arethusa isn't well," remarked Miss Eliza, coming up behind them with most of the dropped belongings; "she must go to bed just as soon as she gets inside the house."

Arethusa lifted her head. "I don't want to go to bed, Aunt 'Liza. I'm not a bit sick."

"Well, do stop carrying on like such a ninny, then!"

But underneath all the sharpness of word and tone of this speech, her niece could somehow read that Miss Eliza was glad to have her back also.

And as for Miss Asenath....

She fairly trembled as she lay on the couch and waited for Arethusa to come to her. She wore the rose-colored birthday gift, but it was not the rose of the shawl that had reflected that faint pink flush to each frail cheek. And it was with all the rush of the old Arethusa across the floor that the girl greeted her dearest of the aunts, and her strong young arms clasped the tiny old lady close to her warm heart in the old loving way. But this Arethusa's eyes were dewy and her voice held a hint of tears; and they were tears which wise Miss Asenath knew almost immediately came not from the mere gladness at being home, after she bade Arethusa stand off so that she might look at her. Miss Asenath, however, said nothing to anybody about her knowledge.

It was good to be at home again, Arethusa felt; good to snuggle down in that old place of hers on the couch and hold Miss Asenath's hand just as she used to; good to watch Miss Letitia's placidity throned in her straight-backed chair and to see her fingers flying as usual and the heap of work in her lap; good even to listen to Miss Eliza's scolding tongue; and good to see Mandy when she waddled in from the kitchen to see "Arethusie" and to state with positiveness that the city did not agree with her at all. But with all of this glow of feeling over getting Home, there was really something wrong, something lacking about it; something Arethusa dimly sensed, but could not exactly define. After awhile Miss Eliza gave her the clue to it, when she imparted the news that Timothy had gone over to Hawesville to a dance.

"Timothy's getting mighty giddy," she added, with great disapproval in voice and manner. "He just gads from one dance to another, all over the county, and he's taken to calling on the town girls. That little visit he made to you in the city had a very bad effect on him, too."

And then with a very little thought, Arethusa knew just what was wrong with her home-coming. It was Timothy.

Timothy, who had always been a part of things for her ever since she could remember, was not there to greet her. Timothy had gone off to a dance and let her come home alone. Timothy, who had always said that he cared more about Arethusa than anyone else in the world, had not seemed to care about her coming back to the Farm. Not in the older, happier days would he have done such a thing as this. And it was well calculated to hurt when she was already so miserable. But then maybe he had not known she was to come; her decision had been so sudden. This might explain.

"Did Timothy know I was coming home to-day?" she asked after a bit, rather timidly.

Miss Eliza snorted. "He most certainly did. I telephoned him myself, this morning, to let him know. That's how I happen to know where he is! You did something to Timothy, Arethusa, when he was in the City to see you. He hasn't been a bit the same since he came home. Gallivanting around with those flip hussies in town! His mother's real worried about him. And he just's running himself thin!"

She would have pursued the subject further, had not Miss Asenath, with gentle diplomacy, interrupted such pursuit. She did not feel as if she could listen to Miss Eliza and Arethusa wrangle over Timothy when the child had just barely got home, after being away so long.

But Arethusa would not have wrangled. She could not have wrangled with Miss Eliza over anything in the world, much less Timothy. She wondered who those girls in town were that he was going to see; Timothy had always declared very emphatically his dislike of the town girls. But she wondered to herself, without asking anybody any questions.

Miss Eliza's sharp eyes watched her niece. She noticed those unusual dark circles under Arethusa's eyes, circles which most certainly were not there when the girl went away; and this strange quietness with which she had come back to them Miss Eliza did not like a bit. The tongue of the Arethusa of three months ago would have gone like a bell clapper under circumstances such as these. And Miss Eliza, who for all her sharp manner and her scolding tongue, loved her niece in her own way as much as either Miss Asenath or Miss Letitia, suddenly wished that she had not let Arethusa make her visit to Lewisburg. She left the sitting-room abruptly and bustled out to the back door to find Blish, whom she scolded most vigorously, much to his astonishment and consternation, for he could not remember a thing he had done or left undone within the last twenty-four hours, since the last scolding, to be scolded for.

Mandy had prepared such a supper for the Arethusa come back to them as not even that much vaunted feast of the prodigal son, for all its fatted calf, could equal. All of Arethusa's favorite dishes were on the table, and it had been set with the company china. Then Mandy and Blish and Nathan, also, came in a group to the door of the dining-room and peeped in with good-natured dark faces stretched wide in brilliant smiling, just to see her eat a few mouthfuls. They were so glad to have her back at the Farm.

Arethusa choked up several times with all the homely kindnesses she received. These dear people who loved her so, how much sweeter they were to her than she at all deserved!

Immediately after supper, Miss Eliza made her niece go to bed. And Arethusa went with such meekness and so altogether unprotesting, that Miss Eliza trotted along up to her room with her, and felt anxiously of her forehead for fever. She was quite positive now that the girl was sick! She bustled around and helped Arethusa undress. She tucked her tightly into the little wooden bed with its turned posts which had always been Arethusa's very own, covering her clear up to her chin with the blue and white squared "counterpin" Miss Letitia had made as a surprise for Arethusa when she should come home. Then Miss Eliza blew out the lamp, efficiently with one blow as always, bade Arethusa peremptorily to go right straight to sleep, and left her. But very unexpectedly, she came back after shutting the door, and trotted briskly across the dark room to give Arethusa a quick little peck on one cheek, which was Miss Eliza's only way of kissing, and to tell her very gruffly that she was awfully glad Arethusa was at home again, and she certainly hoped that she'd have sense enough to stay. Then she once more bade her niece to go straight to sleep and once more departed.

But Arethusa could not go to sleep. She threw back the carefully tucked in covers and got up out of bed, draping the new "counterpin" around her shoulders, and paddled, bare-footed, over to that window of her room which looked in the direction of Timothy's house. It was velvety black over on that horizon, but Arethusa could find the place where the house ought to be. It was a very beautiful night, cold and clear and starry. Arethusa put her head down on the window-sill and gazed up at the stars. There were millions of them, and they all seemed to be winking straight down at her just as sympathetically as possible. She had always loved stars.

As she watched them, a sort of mist began obscuring them from her, and so she brushed at her eyes to wipe it away, but it only seemed to keep on growing to be more decided as a mist; and then it dissolved itself into tears which fell thick and fast, hot tears which splashed on the window-sill ... all because of Timothy's treatment of her on this home-coming afternoon. Arethusa felt as if Timothy's friendship were lost to her forever. Shamed and humiliated by Mr. Bennet, it had remained for life in its cruelty to add this last blow. For unless his feeling for her was absolutely changed, he would never have treated her like this. Arethusa knew Timothy too well.

He had read Mr. Bennet correctly, she remembered now, thinking about her best friend; or about the one who had always, till so recently, been her best friend. He had called Mr. Bennet a "four-flusher." Would that she had not been so blinded in her infatuation as not to heed this warning! She could recall a great many times when Timothy had been proved right in his deductions, which surely ought to have made her place more value on the one concerning Mr. Bennet than she had.

Arethusa felt, just then, as if she would even rather that Miss Eliza should know of that Episode at the January Cotillion than that Timothy should know about it. Timothy's good opinion of her, suddenly, seemed to Arethusa to possess a great charm.

After awhile she crept back into bed, her teeth chattering with the cold, and cried herself to sleep.

In the days which followed Arethusa was kept very busy telling her aunts all that she had done and seen in those three months she had been away from them. And early in the next week, Elinor packed all of the pretty evening frocks which Arethusa, for various scruples, had left hanging in the closet of the green and white room in Lewisburg and sent them down to the Farm, thinking that Arethusa had forgotten them, and might like to have them. There was the Green Frock, and the one like tinted autumn leaves, and the White Dress of her Very Own Party, and many others besides, all reminders of evenings with Mr. Bennet. But even so, Arethusa was glad to see them. She had not realized that she loved them so dearly, until she saw them again. It was just as it had been with the people at the Farm. She spread all the gay beauty of the contents of that box out in the sitting room, and tried them all on, pirouetting and turning and making vivid for the three old ladies who listened to her the parties to which she had worn them.

Miss Letitia was loud in her outspoken admiration of every single frock; her simple heart could not decide which one she liked best, and her seamstress instinct marveled at the wonder of their making. Miss Asenath was more quiet in her approval, but her eyes sparkled at the brightness of their various colors all around her. Miss Eliza was noncommittal, though it was very evident that she found much to displease. When Arethusa tried on the Green Frock which she so dearly loved, she openly expressed her displeasure.

"Did your stepmother," and if ever her rigid little body had signified disapproval of anything it did then, in every line, "did your stepmother permit you to go around dressed like that?"

"All the girls wear dresses like this," replied Arethusa, defensively.

"Then—," began Miss Eliza, with decision, but she snapped her lips together just like a trap and did not finish.

Arethusa, with cheeks that flamed, put away the Green Dress, hung in the darkest corner of the high old walnut wardrobe in her room. The exhibition of the box of clothes ceased abruptly for the time being, and Arethusa fled far away from any chance of Miss Eliza's questions. The Green Dress had been her attire that Fatal Night of the January Cotillion.

Timothy took his time about coming over to see Arethusa, although, had she but known it, it required every bit of self-control he possessed to stay away. He had wanted to rush right over that first afternoon, but his heart was mighty sore still, and he was taking the only way he knew to make Arethusa understand that he did not care in the least how much she gazed adoringly at that very objectionable Mr. Bennet.

She did not see it just exactly that way, however, and as the days went by and she watched for him and he did not come, she put her own construction upon his behavior, and it was right along the line of her conclusions in regard to him that night when she had gazed up at the stars, thinking of him.

But he strolled over, late one afternoon quite formally, just as if he, who had half lived at the Farm all of his life, was making a polite and necessary social call upon its inmates.

Miss Eliza gave him a most vigorous tongue-lashing—before he was quite seated she began it—for going to dances. She considered him headed straight for destruction and had had no opportunity to tell him so. She had seen him but once since he came back from that visit to Arethusa.

"Arethusa dances; ask her to tell you what it's like," he said, most ungraciously.

It was a horrid trick, altogether unworthy of him; but then Timothy was young and things were going hard with him these days. And Miss Eliza's tongue was very sharp; it cut.

So Miss Eliza immediately attacked Arethusa.

"Timothy's of course mistaken. I imagined you'd be going to places where other people did such things, that probably couldn't be helped in a city, but I know you wouldn't so far forget all I've tried to teach you as to indulge in it yourself. It's just public hugging, that's all it is, dancing nowadays!"

"But she did," put in Timothy. "I saw her."

"I can answer for myself, thank you, Timothy Jarvis!" Arethusa said this with a bit of her old asperity. "Yes, I danced, Aunt 'Liza; Father and Mother let me and they didn't think anything was wrong with it."

"Well, I must say! This beats anything I ever heard! I'm not surprised at Ross Worthington, for he was always a bit free in his ideas; but his wife certainly ought to know better than to allow a young girl to take part in such goings on! I must say! I must say!" Miss Eliza's glasses left her nose entirely in her excitement. "What else did you do in the City that you haven't told us about?"

And then ... Arethusa, to the great amazement of everybody, suddenly burst into tears and ran out of the room.

"What on earth ails the child?" inquired Miss Letitia, anxiously. "She's not the least bit like herself!"

"She needs a tonic," answered Miss Eliza decidedly. "I'll see that she begins it, tomorrow. All that carrying-on in the City! Ross Worthington ought to've been ashamed of himself to set by and allow it!" She shut her mouth very grimly. "I'll see to it that she doesn't go there soon again!"

"But he's her father, Sister," interposed Miss Asenath softly; "you must remember that."

"He's her father, 'Senath, and I can't dispute it. But he's an awful unnatural one, the way I look at things! And I reckon, when you get right down to it, Arethusa's just as much my child as she is anybody's, seeing how I've taken care of her ever since she was born and had all the trouble of raising her. And if I know it, she shan't go to Lewisburg again and come home like this, all worn out! I just won't have it!"

And it was not hard for everyone in the room, Timothy included, to realize that Arethusa's future visits to her father would be few and far between, if there were any.

But Miss Asenath, alone of all of them who loved her, dimly guessed at Arethusa's real trouble. And she tried in every way she could to make her tell, for Arethusa had written Miss Asenath pages and pages of rhapsody of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet. But the girl veered away from such a subject, however adroitly introduced, just like a scared rabbit. So after a little while, Miss Asenath gave up her attempt to find out definitely, and contented herself with showing Arethusa that no matter what it was that was troubling her, Aunt 'Senath loved her as much as ever. And her niece clung to the tenderness of this unfailing love as a drowning man clings to a straw; it was the most that was left to her, with the loss of Timothy's comradeship. She took that tonic Miss Eliza procured for her with meek obedience, although it might seem as if Miss Eliza had hunted until she had found the bitterest and nastiest that she could find. But Arethusa only grew paler and thinner than ever; she lost her appetite also, in spite of the tonic. Ere long, Miss Asenath's intuition told her something else. It was Timothy causing this, she believed, and not something that had happened in the City.

And it was Timothy.

He was as top-loftical and as haughty as possible. He made his visits to the Farm of a scarcity and brevity that brought them near to being no visits at all. Such times as he did condescend to come over to see them, he spent the moments telling of all those gay affairs of which he was a part and which Arethusa did not attend, with a brave show of worldliness that deceived them all except Miss Asenath. Miss Eliza shook her head over him. She did not like this change in Timothy.

Arethusa alternated between a desire to slap him for his suddenly acquired society veneer which had such power to irritate her, and a desire to weep the bitterest and most scalding tears for the completeness of his defection. She could not help wondering, sometimes, if he had, by any most uncanny chance, heard of that Episode at the January Cotillion; and knew that Mr. Bennet had Kissed her and that she had believed that he wanted to marry her and he had Not. The Thought made her writhe in agony under the new blue and white "counter-pin." Rather would she have died a thousand deaths than to have Timothy know of that Disgrace!

For he had been to the City twice since she had come home, with his other gadding about; flying trips—"on business," it is true he had said they were—yet he might have heard of it. All Lewisburg might be ringing with it. Such would undoubtedly explain quite satisfactorily his present scorn of her. He did not seem in the least anxious to marry her now.

Timothy, however, no matter what Arethusa thought concerning him and his gayety and his neglect of her, was having the hardest of hard times. If Arethusa cried herself to sleep at night, and he did not, being masculine and not much given to taking a refuge in tears, he suffered none the less keenly. It seemed to Timothy that he would never, as long as he lived, forget Arethusa's lovely face as she danced with Mr. Bennet that night of her New Year's Party. Every single time he saw her now, it seemed to bring before him the picture she was that night; wearing Mr. Bennet's flowers (he was quite sure that he knew now just who had sent her those flowers) and with that wonderful shine in her eyes just for Mr. Bennet. But he was determined that she should not know that it made any difference to him.

Poor Timothy!

He loved Arethusa more than he ever had, with all the wealth of love his clean young heart had in its power to give, now that he thought her unattainable and with all her own affection given to another man. And this same heart that loved her so ached and ached over Arethusa's paleness and thinness; but he accepted Miss Eliza's explanation as the literal one, that the winter in Lewisburg had been too much for her, and that all she needed was a tonic. Had Timothy talked a little to Miss Asenath, as in the old and far happier days, he might have formed very different conclusions. Yet he would have bitten out his tongue rather than have mentioned Mr. Bennet's hated name, even to gentle Miss Asenath, who never failed to understand all that troubled.

So Timothy and Arethusa played at their cross purposes all through the spring.

For the winter had sped itself away somehow and before anyone was really aware of its coming, spring had slipped upon all of them. The days grew warm once more and Arethusa might once again take her books back to the congenial solitude of Miss Asenath's Woods, where, with a thick, woolly carriage rug spread on the ground under the hollow tree, she lay for long hours and read or dreamed. Miss Eliza absolutely refused to countenance any sitting or lying on the damp earth of spring without that rug beneath her, in Arethusa's present state of seeming ill-health; but she made no objections to as many hours spent in the woodland as Arethusa pleased, only provided the rug was there too.

Timothy was very busy, as all farmers needs must be in the spring. The garden had to be got in, and the fields plowed and planted. He did not have nearly so much time for gadding, and Miss Eliza was pleased. She told him she was every chance she had to do so.

Timothy looked much older, Miss Asenath thought. He had a great deal more dignity, and his blue eyes seemed to have acquired depth. There were stern little lines in his face that had never been there before; just as if the boy Timothy had given place to the man. Miss Asenath loved these evidences of his growing.

But often, when he made his rare and formal visits to the Farm of an evening and he and Arethusa sat so decorously in front of the sitting-room fire with the family, she watched him then a trifle sadly. Miss Asenath believed that she would almost be glad to hear him and Arethusa quarrel once more.

"Poor children!" she said to herself one night. "I wonder when they're going to even begin realising how much time they're wasting! All these precious days are slipping by and nothing can ever bring them back!"

And then, with her frail hands clasped on the locket at her throat, Miss Asenath fell to dreaming.

CHAPTER XXV

Arethusa gathered up her woolly rug and a dog-eared copy of "Jane Eyre," which would have known almost instant confiscation if Miss Eliza had glimpsed it in her possession, and proceeded to go down to the woodland. It was an afternoon in early May, and unseasonably hot. As she passed through the kitchen, Mandy paused in her bread-making and looked around. She shook her head at the girl's evident intention, with disapproval.

"I wouldn' be gwine out theah to be settin' this arternoon, Arethusie. It are gwine to rain," she stated with positiveness. Mandy was by way of being something of a weather prophet.

"Nonsense, Mandy! The sky's as blue as blue! There's not a cloud anywhere!" Arethusa dismissed the idea with laughter. "Don't be such an old prophet of evil!"

"Yes'sum, it are gwine to rain." Mandy left the table and went to the door, her hands full of bread dough, to peer out at the metallic looking sky, "and 'foah ve'y long, too. See thet theah?" She pointed to a low brownish grey line far down on the horizon.

"Oh that! That doesn't mean anything!" Arethusa was not to be deterred.

She trailed the rug after her across the orchard and into the woodland without noticing that it was touching the ground nearly all the way.

Miss Asenath's Woods were very beautiful just now; they were always at their loveliest in the spring. The May-apples were in full bloom, and the ground was splotched with great clumps of them, with their straight waxy stems and their pale green umbrella-like leaves, almost hiding the delicate flowers. Everywhere, through the woodland, were all sorts of ambitious, tiny trees which would be choked out later on by the heaviness of the growth above them, but just at present they lifted their beginning life towards the sun, each one as erect as possible; making, all together, something that seemed like a miniature forest. A love-vine, sentimentally named parasite, was starting its curling way over one of the shrubs; the moss was tinted with new green; and blue and white and purple violets showed their saucy faces here and there in patches, scattered with bits of the straight dark-green of the spears of the star of Bethlehem leaves which made a contrast for the lighter color of the violet foliage. And the spring world was all very still, and very peaceful.

Arethusa spread the rug underneath the Hollow Tree, and lay down upon it, resting her head on her crossed arms. She looked above her into the curving arch of those faraway branches, their gnarled age made beautiful with the tenderness of young leaves. Some of these were so small and delicately curly in their newness, they were almost like the crumpling of a baby's fingers. Patches of the bright blue sky showed through them all. An alert robin ran across the woodland like a very fat little man in a terrible hurry, and he paused at the edge of the rug to look at Arethusa inquiringly, his head on one side. But she never moved an inch to notice him, and so, quite satisfied that she was nothing that could harm him, he pecked about within three feet of her head.

Dreaming was her favorite occupation through these spring days, dreaming of the future and what it might bring to her. And Arethusa, believing that she knew just exactly what was to happen by reason of what had already happened, settled the outlines of this future in her dreaming, over and over again, without a single ray of light to break through the darkness of her picture. She would spend it here at the Farm, this strangely quiet Farm; more than ever "a household of women," without Timothy running in and out every day. And some day she would be old and grey like Miss Eliza, busy farming it herself, and wearing plain black dresses and scolding the servants when they did not do just as she wanted. It was a blank future that contained no Timothy. But Arethusa could not very well put Timothy into the future when he refused to be in the present. She would always live alone, she decided, and when she was quite old she would wear a locket like Miss Asenath's, and people would speak of her as having had a Romance; for she had had a Romance, and it had ended very sadly. But she would not wear Mr. Bennet's picture in her locket; he was not worthy of that. Perhaps she might wear Timothy's. She had a splendid picture of Timothy which would look very well in a Locket. There were times when, comparing them, Arethusa was quite of the opinion that Timothy was far handsomer than Mr. Bennet. And even if he did go off and marry some one else, he could surely have no objection to her honoring his picture so. His grandfather had not minded Miss Asenath's ownership of his miniature, and he had married some one else, because she had loved him when he was young. Arethusa had always loved Timothy; she loved him now. If Timothy would only stop to think long enough, he would remember the hundreds of times she had told him he was the best friend she had ever had.

Timothy had found, besides his farmer's duties, another way to occupy himself this spring. It was an automobile of very recent acquisition, a long, dark, grey car of beauty. And nearly every night he raced past the front gate of the Farm in it, while Arethusa stood under the shadow of the clematis vine on the front porch and listened for the first low hum of its motor which carried so far ahead of it through the sleeping country, and watched to see its light come flashing up the Pike, drawing back hastily under the vine when it was close to the gate. Timothy had stopped once or twice and asked them all to ride, but he had never asked Arethusa alone. And since he did not ask her by herself, she was too proud to hop in beside him when Miss Letitia and Miss Eliza refused his invitation. If either one of them had gone, it would have been all right. But neither would.

No human power could have got Miss Letitia into it, and Miss Eliza considered it such a sinful waste of money when Timothy told her how much it had cost him, that she showed her great disapproval by declining to even sit in it.

But nearly every night it whizzed by on the way to town, and Arethusa watched for it in the shadow of the clematis vine.

Arethusa sighed deeply, and reached for "Jane Eyre," at the side of the rug.

It was a most abused and mistreated copy of this work, bearing her father's name on its fly leaf, which she had found on a recent rummaging through the garret. A glance through its pages had made her most anxious to read it. It seemed to be rich with sentiment and entertainment, of a truly Romantick nature.

She had read only as far as Jane's venture into the world of Mr. Rochester last night, when forced by the unfeeling Miss Eliza who viewed no printed matter as of such interest as to make for any forgetfulness of what one ought to do, with a stern call from the foot of the stairs, to "put out that light, and stop whatever it is you're reading this minute, and go straight to sleep!" Arethusa had wept bitterly over the cruelty of the early years; she hoped, this afternoon, to see Jane through to an uninterrupted conclusion of Perfect Happiness such as she so unmistakably deserved.

She read eagerly; her grey-green eyes following the lines of print without once lifting. Her only movement was the turning of the leaves, until a large and splashing drop of something fell plump on the page then open, and she wiped it off. But another fell, immediately after it; then another. It was Mandy's rain.

So Arethusa rose and gathered up her rug to start for the house. In her recently acquired submissiveness, the disobeying of Miss Eliza to stay out in a rain seemed to have no attraction.

But the storm broke with such quickness and fury, that Arethusa got no farther towards the house than a big oak a few yards away from the Hollow Tree. Underneath this, she crouched, covering her head with her arms. For the first time in her life she was frightened of a storm. But then, she never remembered having seen such a battle of the elements as this became, in the fewest possible moments. In fact, for years afterwards, folks in the neighborhood spoke of happenings as being just before, or just after, the "Big Storm."

The lightning flashed so continuously that the heavens were like one steady glare of white light; the thunder boomed and crashed in a hideous din without any cessation. The rain beat against her as sharp as needle points, and the wind seemed as if it were trying to lift her off the ground to fling her back again to crush, so hard it blew. Several trees within her observation went down, some torn up by the roots; Arethusa could have wept miserably to see them go, these woodland friends of hers. "Jane Eyre" was blown from her unheeding grasp and against a crooked root of the oak tree. Its water-soaked pages flapped madly back and forth; the equally water-soaked rug had been flung against a near-by bush, wide spread like a sail.

Then suddenly, with a rush and a roar as if the world itself were being torn from its moorings, the Hollow Tree, the very dearest of all the growth in Miss Asenath's Woods, went crashing to the ground. It fell through the tree against which Arethusa crouched, carrying branches of the latter along with it. It was a pure miracle that she was not hit by some of these flying branches, or by the Hollow Tree itself, in its fall; for it was all around her, hemming her into a prison of instantaneous building so that she could not move. Undoubtedly, had she stayed under the Hollow Tree after the Storm began, she would have been killed.

But with this last desecration the Storm seemed satisfied; its fury abated. And ere long leaves slowly dripping and birds chirping were the only sounds.

Arethusa shivered. Her teeth were chattering, partly through fear and partly because she was really very cold. The Storm had seemed to wring every single bit of warmth out of the air, and she had been wet to the skin with that stinging, chilly rain. Her tears fell fast as she reached to touch the Hollow Tree, all about her. Would that the wind had blown down every single tree in the woodland if it had only left her this one!

She tried to climb out. But every attempt she made was unsuccessful. She was pinned in against the oak tree by interlocked branches which her strength seemed unavailing to so much as disturb. It seemed that all she could do would be to lie helplessly back and wait for somebody to come and find her before she could get out.

But would she have to stay in this place all night before anyone did come? And wait until they could chop her out after they came? How many hours would that take? It might even take days! This was such a big tree!

The thought brought a sudden overwhelming terror of her predicament.

She began calling loudly and frantically for everyone at the house; Miss Eliza and Miss Letitia, Blish and Nathan and Mandy, but none of them came. She even called Miss Asenath, hoping she would hear and tell the others.

Then ... she called Timothy.

And Timothy came.

He plunged through the dripping woodland as if on wings or seven-leagued boots, unmindful of the sloppy ground and the wet branches which flopped back as he passed to sting his face, and he came as straight to Arethusa as it was possible for him to come. He had stopped at the Farm to get out of the Storm, on his way back from town, and 'way up there at the house, standing on the back porch watching it, he had heard her calls for Miss Eliza and the rest, and then for him.

But once in the woodland, and there was no visible evidence of her presence, when he had been so sure just where she was to be found, Timothy stopped running and called wildly himself for Arethusa.

"Here I am!" It sounded thin and like a ghost voice, coming from underneath the piled up heap of broken tree right beside him in the most uncanny way.

"Merciful Heavens!" Timothy knelt down and began making frantic efforts to move the huge branches. "Are you hurt?"

"Not a single bit!" Arethusa's spirits began an immediate reviving. Here was Timothy! The unmistakable cheerfulness in her tones somewhat reassured her rescuer. "Only I can't get out!"

"And you're quite positive you're not hurt?" He asked the question solely for the comfort of hearing her repeat that she was not. For he did not see how she had escaped death in such a catastrophe.

"Sure!"

Arethusa, feeling now so much happier, thought that perhaps she might stand upright. She tried the experiment cautiously and found that she could. Her head and shoulders appeared dryad-like above the young green of the leaves beneath her, and leaves and branches framed her face all around. She waved her hand energetically, and called, to attract the stooping Timothy's attention to her present superior position.

His relief when he saw her was almost comical.

"I'll have you out now in a jiffy!"

But such was not to be the case, for although he poked and poked about everywhere distractedly, and pulled at first one part of it and then another, he was unable to move any of that tree, for all his great strength. Then, very unexpectedly, sticking his head around under the lower branches next the ground, he discovered what seemed to offer some possibilities as a road to Arethusa. He started exploration, and very suddenly, he was right beside her.

Now that his anxiety for her safety was no longer rampant, Timothy could see for himself that Arethusa had not a scratch, he remembered the present state of their relationship. That look of sternness which made his young face seem so much older settled down, and he made business-like preparations to help her get out, breaking off small branches all about him.

"Do you think you could crawl back the way I came in here, or do you want me to go back up to the house and get something to cut the tree away?"

But Arethusa was loath to leave just yet. This seemed so much like old times, the way he had come at her call, when he had used to help her down from hay-stacks which she had climbed too rashly, and rescue her from all sorts of other strange situations. She could not see his face, and so she clasped his arm, gratefully, as she had used to do in those other days. Timothy stiffened a little, but she did not notice it.

"Oh, Timothy!" she exclaimed. "Just suppose you hadn't come! I might have had to stay here all night long!"

"I reckon not! Somebody would have come."

She was chilled by his tone. And when she looked up at him, his grim expression made her draw her hand away from his arm, abruptly.

"How did you get in?" she asked, with dignity.

Timothy indicated the road.

So a little procession started back through that gap in the branches, which Arethusa, had she not been so frightened, might have found for herself without bothering him. He went first, to show the way, and she followed, both on hands and knees. He was out when he heard her scream.

"My hair! My hair is all caught! And I can't get it undone at all!"

She had not really asked for his help, but Timothy turned and crept under the tree once more. Arethusa was badly caught. Her red hair had been grabbed by the crookedest possible branch and it was all wound around it as if the Hollow Tree were so determined to keep her underneath it that either the branch or some of her hair would have to be cut off, before it would let her go. And Arethusa's own efforts to get loose had only succeeded in fastening her tighter.

She accepted Timothy's offer of aid as one who is forced to something inevitable, and bent her head obediently so that he could get at the snarl better. Timothy worked away in silence, his knees braced in the soft ground. His fingers were never very good at this sort of thing, and right now they seemed to become clumsiness personified. They trembled so that the snarl seemed to grow worse and worse with each moment. He gritted his teeth and tried his best to control his hands and his heart, which raced and beat so loudly above the crouching girl. He was quite sure she heard it. This nearness was almost more than he could bear.

And to have his hands buried in that fragrant mass of the hair he loved, suddenly proved his undoing.

He stopped his ineffectual work of untangling; but Arethusa did not know that he had until she felt herself held close to a wildly beating heart and heard him whispering, hoarsely, "Arethusa, I ... I just can't bear it ... any longer!"

Then Timothy Kissed her. He kissed her hungrily; her hair, caught in the branches, her startled eyes, her cheeks, and last of all, her mouth.

"I love you," he said, brokenly, over and over again. "I love you!"

And Arethusa lay very quietly, and listened to him say it.

"I can't get your hair out," said Timothy, miserably, "I'll go and get somebody at the house to come, but I...."

Then Arethusa spoke, softly.

"I don't want you to go get somebody at the house. I want you, yourself, to get my hair out."

He almost groaned. Why did she make things so terribly hard for him? Suddenly, something occurred to Timothy. Arethusa had not even tried to slap him for those kisses, nor had she made even the beginnings of a struggle to get away; which was all most un-Arethusa like. He looked down at her, and he saw that her eyes were full of a truly wonderful light, a light which he had never seen in those eyes before, and it was shining straight at him.

"I want you to get my hair out," she repeated, "but bef ... before you do, T ... Timothy, please ki ... kiss me again!"

Timothy did as requested.

And the whole world did seem to really be hushed into a Startled Silence by What had happened.

And Arethusa forgot that her hair was fastened apparently inextricably in the branches of the Hollow Tree; perhaps the Hollow Tree had served its best purpose in crashing to the ground. She forgot all about Mr. Bennet and that Timothy might not want to marry her if he knew of the Episode of the January Cotillion. She forgot to question the propriety of the number of Timothy's kisses, as too many before their marriage. She thought of nothing in the wide, wide world but just one thing; that never had she felt more contented than where she was, held in the safety of these strong arms of Timothy's. They seemed to shut her in to guard from all unhappiness or terror, or anything that could possibly hurt her in the days to come. It was just as though she had found a place most truly her own, made for her by Timothy's love; and that it was exactly what she had been searching for, for a long, long while.

But she was still Arethusa.

So after a time she stirred, and said very softly, "I can't possibly stay here all my life with my hair caught like this, Timothy, you know. I ... I really think you'd better undo it. I asked you to."

He roused himself with a happy little laugh, and as his fingers were not trembling so much, this attempt was quite successful, and the red locks were soon free.

Then they crawled through the place in the branches and stood upright, face to face, Arethusa's head drooped, and a warm flush mounted suddenly. She could not be said to be at her best appearance, for her hair was all matted and tangled, and wildly disheveled; her dress was muddy to her knees, and torn in several places; there were dirty marks on her face. But to Timothy, she had never looked lovelier in her life.

It was his suggestion that they have a run up to the house.

Hand in hand, they set off at a mad pace through the orchard. Miss Eliza saw them coming, for she was restlessly waiting on the back porch; she had been waiting for some time. She was grim and disapproving as the flushed pair brought up, panting, before her.

"Well, Arethusa...." she began.

But Timothy interposed in a very masterful sort of way.

"You mustn't scold her, Miss 'Liza, for she came very near being killed!" He drew Arethusa's hand through his arm with a little air of proprietorship which did not escape unnoticed. "The big Hollow Tree fell and it pinned her down. I had an awfully hard time getting her out from under it."

At a sudden recollection of the getting Arethusa out from under the tree he blushed boyishly, and most violently, even through his flush of running. Arethusa followed suit.

"Hum ... ph!" said Miss Eliza.

She regarded them both with keen eyes for a moment, those keen eyes of hers that so little escaped.

"Have you," she asked suddenly, and so suddenly that both boy and girl jumped, "have you decided to marry Timothy at last, Arethusa?"

"Yes," replied Timothy.

"No," replied Arethusa, although very weakly, for it was more from force of habit than anything else.

Timothy put his arm clear around her quite unashamed before Miss Eliza, to the deep interest and great delight of Mandy, peering through the kitchen door; and he drew the unresisting girl close to his side.

"Yes," he repeated, with firmness, "she has!"

Arethusa looked up at him sideway, at the strength of his young profile; and feeling his arm around her and remembering how strong and sure that arm had seemed such a little while before, like a bulwark for safety between her and anything that might threaten, she answered meekly, almost like an echo, "Yes, I have!"

And this was quite in spite of the fact (and yet that may have been the very reason why she did, for she had always declared so emphatically that she would say, "no!" to any such proposition coming from him) that Timothy had made no formal proposal of marriage to her so far this summer.