it, then glanced rapidly through it.
"This is from the much-worshipped Miss Ashe, isn't it?"

"Yes. We four are going to spend Thanksgiving with her, and, Patience, I
should like to have you go with us. Won't you please be the
'extra-delightful girl' and say you'll go?"

"Why--why!" Patience, usually cool and unemotional, colored with
pleasure. "Are you sure you really want me? I should be delighted to go.
It is very sweet in you to ask me, Grace."

"Not in the least. It's very jolly in you to accept so promptly. There
is now only one hitch in the programme. I have already delivered Mabel's
invitation to Kathleen."

"She won't go," predicted Patience. "She may be lawless, but she is too
wise to make any such mistake."

* * * * *

Patience's prediction, however, seemed destined not to carry far. To the
amazement of the five young women who waited on the station platform for
the coming of the New York train on Wednesday afternoon, the newspaper
girl, suit case in hand, walked serenely into view just as the train was
heard whistling around a bend half a mile below the station.

"She is actually going to inflict herself upon us," muttered Elfreda in
disgust. Grace had briefly explained the situation to her three friends.

Just then Kathleen's eyes came to rest on the little group. A flash of
surprised anger flitted across her moody face as she espied Patience,
then, with an eloquent shrug of her shoulders, she marched off toward
the other end of the train.

"My doom is sealed," remarked Patience dryly. "Nothing can put our
shattered acquaintance together again."

"I knew she wouldn't go with us even for spite," declared Grace wearily.
"Now, suppose we dismiss her from our minds. I, for one, wish to enjoy
our Thanksgiving vacation with Mabel. I may as well tell you that I am
still very angry with Miss West, and for the first time in my life I
know what it means to be unforgiving."

Grace spoke with bitterness. In her letter to her father she had asked
him to telegraph her that he forgave her. She had lingered at Wayne Hall
until the last moment, but had received no word from him. Now she would
not know until she returned from New York. To be sure, she would try to
dismiss the whole thing from her mind, but at times it rose before her
like a dark shadow, shutting out for the moment the pleasure of her
holiday, and causing her to feel gloomy and depressed.

During the journey to Ne