e the difference?" said Yerba, darkly. "Well, I do. But
what are you looking at?"

Her companion had caught her arm, and was gazing intently at the house.

"Yerba," she said quickly, "there's the Mayor, and uncle, and a strange
gentleman coming down the walk. They're looking for us. And, as I
live, Yerb! the strange gentleman is that young senator, Mr. Hathaway!"

"Mr. Hathaway? Nonsense!"

"Look for yourself."

Yerba glanced at the three gentlemen, who, a hundred yards distant,
were slowly advancing in the direction of the ceanothus-hedge, behind
which the girls had instinctively strayed during their conversation.

"What are you going to do?" said Milly, eagerly. "They're coming
straight this way. Shall we stay here and let them pass, or make a run
for the house?"

"No," said Yerba, to Milly's great surprise. "That would look as if we
cared. Besides, I don't know that Mr. Hathaway has come to see ME.
We'll stroll out and meet them accidentally."

Milly was still more astonished. However, she said, "Wait a moment,
dear!" and, with the instinctive deftness of her sex, in three small
tugs and a gentle hitch, shook Yerba's gown into perfect folds, passed
her fingers across her forehead and over her ears, securing, however,
with a hairpin on their passage three of the rose petals where they had
fallen. Then, discharging their faces of any previous expression,
these two charming hypocrites sallied out innocently into the walk.
Nothing could be more natural than their manner: if a criticism might
be ventured upon, it was that their elbows were slightly drawn inwards
and before them, leaving their hands gracefully advanced in the line of
their figures, an attitude accepted throughout the civilized world of
deportment as indicating fastidious refinement not unmingled with
permissible hauteur.

The three gentlemen lifted their hats at this ravishing apparition, and
halted. The Mayor advanced with great politeness.

"I feared you didn't hear me call you, Miss Yerba, so we ventured to
seek you." As the two girls exchanged almost infantile glances of
surprise, he continued: "Mr. Paul Hathaway has done us the honor of
seeking you here, as he did not find you at the convent. You may have
forgotten that Mr. Hathaway is the third one of your trustees."

"And so inefficient and worthless that I fear he doesn't count," said
Paul, "but," raising his eyes to Yerba's, "I fancy that I have already
had the pleasure of