tuated," and she slipped away, Toinette calling after
her: "You are responsible for most of the nice things which happen here.
Oh, daddy," dropping unconsciously into the old childish pet name, "I've
such stacks of things to tell you. But, excuse me just one second, while I
find a partner for that boy I've left stranded high and dry over there;
doesn't he look miserable? Then I'll come back," and, kissing her hand
gaily, she ran off. Returning a moment or two later, she said:

"There! he's all fixed, and is sure to have a good time with Ethel and
Lou; they're not a team, but a four-in-hand. Now, come and have a dance
with me, and then we'll go off all by ourselves and have the cosiest time
you ever dreamed of. I feel so proud to have you all to myself," she
added, as they glided away to the soft strains of the music, "so sort of
grown-up and grand with such a handsome partner."

"Hear! hear! Do you want to make me vain? I haven't been accustomed to
hearing such barefaced compliments. They make me blush."

"I really believe they _do_," answered Toinette, throwing back her head to
get a better look at him, and laughing softly when she saw a slight flush
upon his face. "Never mind, it is all in the family, you know."

"Perhaps I have other reasons for feeling a trifle elated," he said, as
the dance came to an end and he followed Toinette to one of the cozy
corners. Springing up among the cushions, she patted them invitingly, and
said:

"Come, sit down here beside me, and let me tell you all about the
loveliest time of my life. Oh, daddy, I _do_ so love to be here, and you
don't know how good Miss Preston is to me. She is good to us all, but,
somehow the other girls don't seem to need so much setting straight as _I_
have. I think I must have been all kinked up in little hard knots before I
came here, and Miss Preston has begun to untie them. She hasn't got all
untied yet, but I feel so sort of loosened up and easy that everything
seems lots more comfortable."

[Illustration: "I FEEL SO SORT OF GROWN UP AND GRAND."]

Clayton Reeve did not smile at Toinette's odd way of explaining her
feelings. He knew it to be a fourteen-year-old girl who spoke, and that
her thoughts, to be natural, must be put into her own words.

On she rambled, telling one thing after another, and, while they were
talking, Helen Burgess stopped near their snuggery. It was too dimly
lighted for her to discover them, and the next thing they knew they