nsely
preoccupied with what he meant to do as soon as the music paused, he
was somewhat hazy, but when he perceived that he was being led in the
direction of a girl, sitting solitary under one of the maple-trees, the
sudden shock of fear aroused his faculties.

"What--where--" he stammered, halting and seeking to detach himself from
his hostess.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I got--I got to--" William began, uneasily. "I got to--"

His purpose was to excuse himself on the ground that he had to find a
man and tell him something important before the next dance, for in the
confusion of the moment his powers refused him greater originality.
But the vital part of his intended excuse remained unspoken, being
disregarded and cut short, as millions of other masculine diplomacies
have been, throughout the centuries, by the decisive action of ladies.

Miss Boke had been sitting under the mapletree for a long time--so long,
indeed, that she was acquiring a profound distaste for forestry and even
for maple syrup. In fact, her state of mind was as desperate, in its
way, as William's; and when a hostess leads a youth (in almost perfectly
fitting conventional black) toward a girl who has been sitting alone
through dance after dance, that girl knows what that youth is going to
have to do.

It must be confessed for Miss Boke that her eyes had been upon William
from the moment Mrs. Parcher addressed him. Nevertheless, as the pair
came toward her she looked casually away in an indifferent manner. And
yet this may have been but a seeming unconsciousness, for upon the very
instant of William's halting, and before he had managed to stammer "I
got to--" for the fourth time, Miss Boke sprang to her feet and met Mrs.
Parcher more than halfway.

"Oh, Mrs. Parcher!" she called, coming forward.

"I got--" the panic-stricken William again hastily began. "I got to--"

"Oh, Mrs. Parcher," cried Miss Boke, "I've been SO worried! There's a
candle in that Japanese lantern just over your head, and I think it's
going out."

"I'll run and get a fresh one in a minute," said Mrs. Parcher, smiling
benevolently and retaining William's arm with a little difficulty. "We
were just coming to find you. I've brought--"

"I got to--I got to find a m--" William made a last, stricken effort.

"Miss Boke, this is Mr. Baxter," said Mrs. Parcher, and she added, with
what seemed to William hideous garrulity, "He and you both came late,
dear, and he hasn't any