st happened to see the boy at the door," she said, with her silly
teeth chattering. "Oh, Miss Barbara, if Patrick had answered the bell!
What shall we do with them?"

"You take them right down the back stairs," I said. "As if it was an
empty box. And put it outside with the waist papers. Quick."

She gathered the thing up, but of course mother had to come in just
then and they met in the doorway. She saw it all in one glance, and she
snatched the card out of my hand.

"From H----!" she read. "Take them out, Hannah, and throw them away. No,
don't do that. Put them on the Servant's table." Then, when the door
had closed, she turned to me. "Just one more ridiculous Episode of this
kind, Barbara," she said, "and you go back to school--Xmas or no Xmas."

I will say this. If she had shown the faintest softness, I'd have told
her the whole thing. But she did not. She looked exactly as gentle as a
macadam pavment. I am one who has to be handled with Gentleness. A
kind word will do anything with me, but harsh treatment only makes me
determined. I then become inflexable as iron.

That is what happened then. Mother took the wrong course and threatened,
which as I have stated is fatal, as far as I am concerned. I refused
to yeild an inch, and it ended in my having my dinner in my room, and
mother threatening to keep me home from the Party the next night. It was
not a threat, if she had only known it.

But when the next day went by, with no more flowers, and nothing
aparently wrong except that mother was very dignafied with me, I began
to feel better. Sis was out all day, and in the afternoon Jane called me
up.

"How are you?" she said.

"Oh, I'm all right."

"Everything smooth?"

"Well, smooth enough."

"Oh, Bab," she said. "I'm just crazy about it. All the girls are."

"I knew they were crazy about something."

"You poor thing, no wonder you are bitter," she said. "Somebody's
coming. I'll have to ring off. But don't you give in, Bab. Not an inch.
Marry your Heart's Desire, no matter who butts in."

Well, you can see how it was. Even then I could have told father and
mother, and got out of it somehow. But all the girls knew about it, and
there was nothing to do but go on.

All that day every time I thought of the Party my heart missed a beat.
But as I would not lie and say that I was ill--I am naturaly truthful,
as far as possible--I was compelled to go, although my heart was
breaking.

I am not going to write