putting it down on paper for him. And she put it
down in the burning words, the fiery phrases, of those anarchists of
art who had intoxicated and obsessed her.

Just a little later,--even a year later--and Mary Virginia could never
have written those letters. But now, very ignorant, very innocent,
very impassioned, she accomplished a miracle. She was like one
speaking an unknown tongue, perfectly sure that the spirit moved her,
but quite unable to comprehend what it was that it moved her to say.

When Mrs. Baker insisted that her young cousin should come back to her
for the Christmas holidays, the girl was more than eager to go. Seeing
him again only deepened her infatuation.

That holiday visit was an unusually gay one, for Mrs. Baker was really
fond of Mary Virginia--the young girl's tenderness and simplicity
touched the woman of the world. She gave a farewell dance the night
before Mary Virginia was to return to school. It was an informal
affair, with enough college boys and girls to lend it a junior air,
but there was a goodly sprinkling of grown-ups to deepen it, for the
hostess said frankly that she simply couldn't stand the Very Young
except in broken doses and in bright spots.

Hunter, of course, was to be one of the grownups. He had sent Mary
Virginia the flowers she was to wear. And she had a new dancing frock,
quite the loveliest and fluffiest and laciest she had ever worn.

He was somewhat late. And so engrossed with him were all her thoughts,
so eager was she to see him, that she was a disappointing companion
for anybody else. She couldn't talk to anybody else. She flitted in
and out of laughing groups like a blue-and-silver butterfly, and
finally managed to slip away to the stair nook behind what Mrs. Baker
liked to call the conservatory. This was merely a portion of the big
back hall glassed in and hung with a yellow silk curtain; it had a
tiny round crystal fountain in the center and one or two carved seats,
but one wouldn't think so small a space could hold so much bloom and
fragrance. From the nook where Mary Virginia sat, one could hear every
word spoken in the flower-room, though the hearer remained hidden by
the paneled stairway.

Hands in her lacy lap, eyes abstracted, she fell into the dreams that
youth dreams; in which a girl--one's self, say,--walks hand in hand
through an enchanted world with a being very, very little lower than
the angels and twice as dear. They are such innocent dreams,