wharf, and then a low murmur of conversation that did not start up
the hill toward her, as she had expected.

"Innocents!" sighed Katherine. "They're actually stopping to talk it out
down there in the wet. I'm glad they've made it up, and I'd do anything
in reason for Betty Wales, but I certainly am sleepy," and she yawned so
loud that a blue jay that was roosting in the tree above her head
fluttered up to a higher branch, screaming angrily.

"The note of the nestle," laughed Katherine, and yawned again.

Down on the wharf Betty and Eleanor were curled up close together in an
indiscriminate, happy tangle of rain-coat, golf-cape, and very drabbled
muslin, holding a conversation that neither would ever forget. Yet it
was perfectly commonplace; Harding girls are not given to the expression
of their deeper emotions, though it must not therefore be inferred that
they do not have any to express.

"Oh, Betty, you can't imagine how dreadful it was out there!" Eleanor
was saying. "And I thought I should have to stay all night, of course.
How did you know I hadn't come in?"

Betty explained.

"I don't see why you bothered," said Eleanor. "I'm sure I shouldn't
have, for any one as horrid as I've been. Oh, Betty, will you truly
forgive me?"

"Don't say that. I've wanted to do something that would make you forgive
me."

"Oh, I know you have," broke in Eleanor quickly. "Miss Ferris told me."

"She did!" interrupted Betty in her turn. "Why, she promised not to."

"Yes, but I asked her. It seemed to me queer that she should have taken
such an interest in me, and all of a sudden it flashed over me, as I sat
talking to her, that you were at the bottom of it. So I said, 'Miss
Ferris, Betty Wales asked you to say this to me,' and she said, 'Yes,
but she also asked me not to mention her having done so.' I was ashamed
enough then, for she'd made me see pretty plainly how badly I needed
looking after, but I was bound I wouldn't give in. Oh, Betty, haven't I
been silly!"

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings by what I said at that class
meeting, Eleanor," said Betty shyly.

"You didn't hurt them. I was just cross at things in general--at myself,
I suppose that means,--and angry at you because I'd made you despise me,
which certainly wasn't your fault."

"Eleanor, what nonsense! I despise you?"

A rustling on the bank reminded Betty that Katherine was waiting. "We
must go home," she said. "It's after midnight."

"So it is," a