Hill and Valleyfield news,
tell me everything that has happened since I left. How many people
have you killed off? And, oh, why didn't you come to see me before?"

"I didn't think I should be wanted, Kitty," Jack answered quietly.
"You seemed to be so absorbed in your new life that old friends and
interests were crowded out."

"So I was at first," I answered penitently. "I was dazzled, you know.
The glare was too much for my Thrush Hill brown. But it's different
now. How did you happen to come, Jack?"

"I had to come to Montreal on business, and I thought it would be too
bad if I went back without coming to see what they had been doing in
Vanity Fair to my little playmate."

"Well, what do you think they have been doing?" I asked saucily.

I had on a particularly fetching gown and knew I was looking my best.
Jack, however, looked me over with his head on one side.

"Well, I don't know, Kitty," he said slowly. "That is a stunning sort
of dress you have on--not so pretty, though, as that old blue muslin
you used to wear last summer--and your hair is pretty good. But you
look rather disdainful and, after all, I believe I prefer Thrush Hill
Kitty."

How like Jack that was. He never thought me really pretty, and he is
too honest to pretend he does.

But I didn't care. I just laughed, and we sat down together and had a
long, delightful, chummy talk.

Jack told me all the Valleyfield gossip, not forgetting to mention
that Mary Carter was going to be married to a minister in June. Jack
didn't seem to mind it a bit, so I guess he couldn't have been
particularly interested in Mary.

In due time Alicia sailed in. I suppose she had found out from Bessie
who my caller was, and felt rather worried over the length of our
tete-a-tete.

She greeted Jack very graciously, but with a certain polite
condescension of which she is past mistress. I am sure Jack felt it,
for, as soon as he decently could, he got up to go. Alicia asked him
to remain to dinner.

"We are having a few friends to dine with us, but it is quite an
informal affair," she said sweetly.

I felt that Jack glanced at me for the fraction of a second. But I
remembered that Gus Sinclair was coming too, and I did not look at
him.

Then he declined quietly. He had a business engagement, he said.

I suppose Alicia had noticed that look at me, for she showed her
claws.

"Don't forget to call any time you are in Montreal," she said more
sweetly than ever. "I