Come, Fan, pull yourself together," he urged. "Here's Ellen waiting
for us by the gate. Don't for heaven's sake give yourself away. Keep
a stiff upper lip, old girl!"

"Well, I thought you two were never coming!" Ellen's full rich voice
floated out to them, as they came abreast of the Dix homestead
nestled back among tall locust trees.

The girl herself daintily picked her way toward them among the weeds
by the roadside. She uttered a little cry of dismay as a stray branch
caught in her muslin skirts.

"That's the sign of a beau, Ellen," laughed Fanny, with extravagant
gayety. "The bigger the stick the handsomer and richer the beau."

"What made you so late?" inquired Ellen, as all three proceeded on
their way, the two girls linked affectionately arm in arm; Jim Dodge
striding in the middle of the road a little apart from his
companions.

"Oh, I don't know," fibbed Fanny. "I guess I was slow starting to
dress. The days are so long now I didn't realize how late it was
getting."

Ellen glanced sympathizingly at her friend.

"I was afraid you wouldn't want to come, Fanny," she murmured,
"Seeing the social is at Mrs. Solomon Black's house."

"Why shouldn't I want to come?" demanded Fanny aggressively.

"Well, I didn't know," replied Ellen.

After a pause she said:

"That Orr girl has really bought the Bolton house; I suppose you
heard? It's all settled; and she's going to begin fixing up the place
right off. Don't you think it's funny for a girl like her to want a
house all to herself. I should think she'd rather board, as long as
she's single."

"Oh, I don't know about that," said Jim Dodge coolly.

"You folks'll get money out of it; so shall we," Ellen went on.
"Everybody's so excited! I went down for the mail this afternoon and
seemed to me 'most everybody was out in the street talking it over.
My! I'd hate to be her tonight."

"Why?" asked Fanny shortly.

"Oh, I don't know. Everybody will be crowding around, asking
questions and saying things.... Do you think she's pretty, Jim?"

"Pretty?" echoed the young man.

He shot a keen glance at Ellen Dix from under half-closed lids. The
girl's big, black eyes were fixed full upon him; she was leaning
forward, a suggestion of timid defiance in the poise of her head.

"Well, that depends," he said slowly. "No, I don't think she's
_pretty_."

Ellen burst into a sudden trill of laughter.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "I supposed all the men--"

"But