k it later to
reread at his leisure. Just that one enthusiastic letter, bubbling
over with a young girl's happiness, was enough to repay him for any
sacrifice he had made to give her such pleasure, and the smile the
letter awakened stayed on in his tired eyes all day.

A sound of voices broke out through the house long before Mary Lee had
finished writing. There was much opening and shutting of doors, and
calling of gay messages across the halls as the old mansion awoke to
life. Long before she was dressed for dinner, Mary Lee saw a flutter
of ribbons and white gowns under the trees as some of the girls
strolled down to the springs through the lengthening shadows. Soon she
and Travis would be strolling there, too.

Some one began playing on the piano in the drawing-room below, and a
familiar air came floating up to her, clear and sweet. It thrilled her
with a festive holiday feeling that seemed to give wings to her
spirits. "Listen, Travis," she cried, running into the adjoining room,
"to-morrow you'll be singing with them."

The music stopped, and the singer came out of the house and stood on
the white steps below between the lions, still humming. It was Molly
Glendenning, in her rose-coloured hat and dainty ruffled dress of
palest pink organdy.

"Oh, isn't she beautiful!" exclaimed Mary Lee, peeping out between the
curtains. "Look, Travis. What a picture she makes! 'Queen rose of the
rosebud garden of girls,'" she quoted softly. "Oh, I know I shall love
her," she declared, with all the intense enthusiasm of seventeen.

Four more pages were added to Mary Lee's letter that night. She
described everybody whom they had met at dinner, from her Queen Rose,
as she called Molly Glendenning, to the courtly old Confederate
general at the end of the table. She had been so absorbed in the
repartee and bright speeches round her that she had not noticed that
she and Travis were not included in the conversation. But Travis had
noticed. There were many callers that night after dinner; men who took
the girls away singly, in groups, and in pairs, to some sort of an
entertainment at the Inn near by. Travis and Mary Lee, sitting all
alone on the porch in the moonlight, could hear the music of the band
stealing across the lawn. There was a wistful little note in Mary
Lee's voice as she exclaimed, "I wish that we had been here long
enough to know everybody and go, too. Oh, Travis, it will be so nice
when we're really acquainted and a