"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 blase 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 fiancee 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 retroussee. 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.