it.

The music came to a close with a loud double bang that made Lloyd start up
from her chair with a guilty flush, fearing that she had been caught at
her peculiar occupation. Before Fidelia could say anything, Lloyd walked
over to her with the friendliest of her practised smiles, and held out the
box of chocolate creams.

"Take some," she said. "They are the best I've had since I left Kentucky."

"Thanks," said Fidelia, stiffly, screwing around on the piano-stool, and
helping herself to just one. But feeling the warmth of Lloyd's cordial
tone, urging her to take more, she thawed into smiling friendliness, and
took several. "They are delicious!" she exclaimed. "You got them at the
cake shop on the corner, didn't you? There are two awfully nice American
girls stopping at this hotel who took me in there one day for some.
They've been in Kentucky, too. The one named Elizabeth lives there."

"Why, it must be Betty and Eugenia!" cried Lloyd. "The very girls we came
here to meet. Do _you_ know them?"

"Not very well. We've only been here a few days. But I dearly love the one
you call Betty. She came into my room one night when I had the tooth-ache,
and brought a spice poultice and a hot-water bag. Mamma was at a concert,
and Fanchette was cross, and I was so miserable and lonesome I wanted to
die. But Elizabeth knew exactly what to do to stop the pain, and then she
stayed and talked to me for a long time. She told me about a house party
she went to last year, where the girls all caught the measles at a gypsy
camp, and she nearly went blind on account of it."

"That was _my_ house pahty," exclaimed the Little Colonel, "and my mothah
is Betty's godmothah, and Betty is goin' to live at my house all next
wintah, and go to school with me."

Fidelia swung farther around on the piano-stool, and faced Lloyd in
surprise. "And are _you_ the Little Colonel!" she cried. "From what
Elizabeth said, I thought she was pretty near an angel!" Fidelia's tone
implied more plainly than her words that she wondered how Betty could
think so.

A cutting reply was on the tip of Lloyd's tongue, but the sight of her
face in the mirror checked it. She only said, pleasantly, "Betty is
certainly the loveliest girl in the world, and--"

"There she is now!" interrupted Fidelia, nodding toward the door as voices
sounded in the hall and footsteps came out from the office.

"Oh, they'll be so surprised!" said Lloyd, looking back with a radiant
face