ips, as if the words were sweet.

Elmira looked at her brother breathlessly. Nobody knew how eager she
was to go; it was the first party worthy of a name to which she had
been bidden in her whole life. She and her mother had been
speculating, ever since the invitation had arrived, upon the
possibility of Jerome's refusing to accept it.

"Nobody can tell what he'll do," Mrs. Edwards had said. "He's just as
likely to take a notion not to go as to go."

"I can't go if he doesn't," said Elmira.

"Why can't you, I'd like to know?"

Elmira shrank timidly. "I never went into Squire Merritt's house in
my life," said she.

"I guess there ain't anything there to bite you," said her mother.
"I'm goin' to say all I can to have your brother go; but if he won't,
you can put on your new dress an' go without him." However, Mrs.
Edwards privately resolved to use as an argument to Jerome, in case
he refused to attend the party, the fact that his sister would not go
without him.

She used it now. Mrs. Edwards's military tactics were those of direct
onslaught, and no saving of powder. "Elmira's afraid to go unless you
do," said she. "You'll be keepin' her home, an' she ain't had a
chance to go to many parties, poor child!"

Jerome met Elmira's beseeching eyes and frowned aside, blushing like
a girl. "Well, I don't know," said he; "I'll see."

That was the provincial form of masculine concession to feminine
importunity. Mrs. Edwards nodded to Elmira when Jerome had shut the
door. "He'll go," said she.

Elmira smiled and quivered with half-fearful delight. Lawrence
Prescott was coming to see her the next day, and the day after that
she would be sure to meet him again at Squire Merritt's. She trembled
before her own happiness, as before an angel whose wings cast shadows
of the dread of delight.

"You'd better go to bed now," said her mother, with a meaning look;
"you want to look bright to-morrow, and you've got a good deal before
you."

The next day not a word was said to Jerome about Lawrence Prescott's
expected call. He noticed vaguely that something unusual seemed to be
going on in the parlor; then divined, with a careless dismissal of
the subject, that it was house-cleaning. He had a secret of his own
that day which might have rendered him less curious about the secrets
of others. There were scarcely enough shoes finished to take to Dale,
only a half-lot, but Jerome announced his intention of going, to
Ozias Lamb, with