t n't try
to cut me out."

Arthur was Amy's ideal of gentlemanly ease and polish, and she had been
very proud of having so fine a city brother to introduce to the girls.
Imagine her astonishment and chagrin when she saw him standing before
Lina with an exaggeration of the agitated, sheepish air the girls made
such fun of in their rural admirers! But if that surprised her, what
was her amazement to see Lina looking equally confused, and blushing to
where her neck curved beneath the lace, although the brave eyes met
his fairly! A wise instinct told Amy that here was something she didn't
understand, and she had better go away, and she did.

"The melon was very good, Mr. Steele," said Lina demurely, with a
glimmer of fun in her black eyes.

"Miss Maynard, I don't know how I shall beg pardon, or humble myself
enough for my outrageous treatment of you," burst forth Arthur. "I
don't know what I should have done if I had n't had an opportunity for
apologizing pretty soon, and now I scarcely dare look you in the face."

His chagrin and self-reproach were genuine enough, but he might have
left off that last, for he had n't been looking anywhere else since he
came into the room.

"You did shake me rather hard," she said, with a smiling contraction of
the black eyebrows.

Good heavens! had he actually shaken this divine creature,--this
Cleopatra of a girl, whose queenly brow gave her hair the look of
a coronet! He groaned in spirit, and looked so self-reproachful and
chagrined that she laughed.

"I don't know about forgiving you for that, but I 'm so grateful you
did n't take me to the lock-up that I suppose I ought not to mind the
shaking."

"But, Miss Maynard, you surely don't think I was in earnest about that?"
he exclaimed, in strenuous deprecation.

"I don't know, I 'm sure," she said doubtfully. "You looked as if you
were capable of it."

He was going on to protest still farther when she interrupted him, and
said laughingly:--

"You take to apologizing so naturally that I 'd nearly forgotten that
it was not you but I who was the real culprit. I must really make a few
excuses myself before I hear any more from you."

And then she told him all about her brother Charley's letter, and the
spirit of emulation that had got her into trouble. It was easy enough to
joke about certain aspects of the matter; but when she came to talk in
plain language about her performances that night, she became so much
embarrassed and