threshold of the arbour
itself.

"Rhoda!" he cried, then, "look up! I have brought someone to you.
Someone you will be glad to see."

The flaxen mane was tossed back, and a flushed face raised in protest.
"I don't--" began Rhoda, and then suddenly sprang to her feet and
stretched out her arms. "Oh, Evie--Evie! You have come. Oh, I wanted
you--I wanted you so badly!"

Miss Everett stepped forward and drew the girl to her side, and Harold
waited just long enough to see the fair head and the dark nestle
together, and then took himself off to the house, satisfied that comfort
had come at last.

"I have _failed_, Evie!" cried Rhoda, clasping her friend's hands, and
staring at her with the same expression of incredulous horror with which
she had confronted her brother a couple of hours earlier. "Yes,
darling. I know."

"And what are you going to say to me, then?"

"Nothing, I think, for the moment, but that I love you dearly, and felt
that I must come to be with you. Aren't you surprised to see me,
Rhoda?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't feel anything. I wanted you, and then--
there you were! It seemed quite natural."

"But it was rather peculiar all the same. I have been staying with Tom,
and we were both asked down to D-- for a four days' visit. That is only
half an hour's rail from here, as you know; so this morning when I saw
the list in the paper I thought at once--`I must see Rhoda! I will go
down and chance finding her at home!'"

"Yes!"

"So I came, and am so glad to be with you, dear. I have seen your
mother, and have promised to stay to lunch. I need not go back until
four o'clock."

"Oh, that's nice. I like to have you. Evie, I believe it was the
arithmetic. I was so ill, I could hardly think. You might as well know
all now. It was my own doing. I had been working every morning before
getting up, and that day I began at four. I tired myself out before the
gong rang."

"I guessed as much. Dorothy told me that she heard someone turning over
leaves!"

"Why don't you say, `I told you so!' then, and tell me that it's my own
fault?"

"I--don't--know! Perhaps because I do so many foolish things myself;
perhaps because I haven't the heart to scold you just now, you poor
dear."

Rhoda's face quivered, but she pressed her lips together, and said with
a gulp:

"I suppose--it's a childish trouble! I suppose--when I am old--and
sensible--I shall look back on to-day, and laugh to