not, although I could not have run
anywhere. My legs were entirely numb.

In a half hour at the utmost I knew all would be known, and very likely
I would be a homless wanderer on the earth. For I felt that never, never
could I return to my Dear Ones, when my terrable actions became known.

Jane came in while I was sipping the tea and she stood off and eyed me
with sympathy.

"I don't wonder, Bab!" she said. "The idea of your Familey acting so
outragously! And look here" She bent over me and whispered it. "Don't
trust Carter too much. He is perfectly in fatuated with Leila, and he
will play into the hands of the enemy. BE CAREFUL."

"Loathesome creature!" was my response. "As for trusting him, I trust no
one, these days."

"I don't wonder your Faith is gone," she observed. But she was talking
with one eye on a mirror.

"Pink makes me pale," she said. "I'll bet the maid has a drawer full of
rouge. I'm going to see. How about a touch for you? You look gastly."

"I don't care how I look," I said, recklessly. "I think I'll sprain my
ankle and go home. Anyhow I am not allowed to use rouge."

"Not allowed!" she observed. "What has that got to do with it? I don't
understand you, Bab; you are totaly changed."

"I am suffering," I said. I was to.

Just then the maid brought me a folded note. Hannah was hanging up my
wraps, and did not see it. Jane's eyes fairly bulged.

"I hope you have saved the Cotillion for me," it said. And it was
signed. H----!

"Good gracious," Jane said breathlessly. "Don't tell me he is here, and
that that's from him!"

I had to swallow twice before I could speak. Then I said, solemnly:

"He is here, Jane. He has followed me. I am going to dance the Cotillion
with him although I shall probably be disinherited and thrown out into
the World, as a result."

I have no recollection whatever of going down the staircase and into the
ballroom. Although I am considered rather brave, and once saved one of
the smaller girls from drowning, as I need not remind the school, when
she was skating on thin ice, I was frightened. I remember that, inside
the door, Jane said "Courage!" in a low tence voice, and that I stepped
on somebody's foot and said "Certainly" instead of apologizing. The
shock of that brought me around somewhat, and I managed to find Mrs.
Adams and Elaine, and not disgrace myself. Then somebody at my elbow
said:

"All right, Barbara. Everything's fixed."

It was Carter.

"He's wai