brilliant with life and merriment,
looked a different fellow from the one his friends had been accustomed to
see of late; and Sally, her cheeks like crimson carnations, her eyes dark
with fun and happiness, her steps the embodiment of youthful grace, was a
fascinating figure to watch.

"Isn't that the prettiest thing you ever saw?" asked Josephine of Donald
Ferry, as he stood beside her with folded arms.

He nodded.

"I suppose they're making it up as they go along," he said, "but it's
very clever and charming. I didn't know your brother had it in him to
be so gay."

"Oh, he has. It's this long bother with his eyes that has made him look
like an owl, and feel like one. He has plenty of fun and energy in him
when it gets a chance."

"I'm beginning to find him out. I like a chap who can relax like that,
and show the boyish side of himself now and then."

"And isn't Sally perfectly dear? I never saw her look prettier than
to-night," declared Josephine, with an unconscious glance from Sally's
white frock, which she knew was an old and much mended one, down at her
own pale blue gown, just home from an expensive shop. She was thinking
that if she looked half as well in her fine things as Sally in her
simple old ones, she should be quite content.

Ferry looked down at the dark head beside him. He remembered no less than
three fair maids who had, that evening, called his attention, by one
means and another, to points less attractive than their own in other
girls. It struck him, as it had done more than once before, that a very
warm generosity characterized the friendship between Josephine and Sally,
inasmuch as each had seemed to him to be most anxious to have him
appreciate the charms of the other.

As for Josephine herself, though he would not bluntly tell her so, she
had seldom presented a more winsome picture than to-night. Her dark
colouring and piquant features possessed a quality very close to beauty,
and her smile at Sally, at a moment when the girl, sweeping close, made
her friend a special salutation, was undoubtedly a very attractive thing.

A burst of enthusiastic applause greeted the final whirl and bows of the
"corn-stalk prance," and Sally, breathless, dropped upon the bottom step
of the wide staircase. Jarvis, coming close to Max, whose hand-clapping
was of the heartiest, said in his friend's ear, "Why not tell her now
that you've decided to stay here? If you do, you'll make this the
happiest night o