en _Mrs. Barry_

IN APPLE-BLOSSOM TIME

CHAPTER I

The Princess

Miss Mehitable Upton had come to the city to buy a stock of goods for
the summer trade. She had a little shop at the fashionable resort of
Keefeport as well as one in the village of Keefe, and June was
approaching. It would soon be time to move.

Miss Upton's extreme portliness had caused her hours of laborious
selection to fatigue her greatly. Her face was scarlet as she entered a
popular restaurant to seek rest and refreshment. She trudged with all
the celerity possible toward the only empty table, her face expressing
wearied eagerness to reach that desirable haven before any one else
espied it.

Scarcely had she eased herself down into the complaining chair, however,
before a reason for the unpopularity of this table appeared. A steady
draught blew across it strong enough to wave the ribbons on her hat.

"This won't do at all," muttered Miss Mehitable. "I'm all of a sweat."

She looked about among the busy hungry horde, and her eye alighted on a
table at which a young girl sat alone.

"Bet she'll hate to see me comin', but here goes," she added, slipping
the straps of her bag up on her arm and grasping the sides of the table
with both hands.

Ben Barry was wont to say: "When Mehit is about to rise and flee, it's a
case of Yo heave ho, my hearties. All hands to the ropes." But then it
was notorious that Ben's bump of reverence was an intaglio.

Miss Upton got to her feet and started on her trip, her eyes expressing
renewed anxiety.

A lantern-faced, round-shouldered man, whose ill-fitting clothes, low
collar several sizes too large, and undecided manner suggested that he
was a visitor from the rural districts, happened to be starting for the
young girl's table at the same moment.

Miss Upton perceived his intention.

"Let him set in the draught," she thought. "He don't look as if he'd
ever been het up in his life."

With astonishing swiftness her balloon-like form took on an extra
sprint. The man became aware of her object and they arrived at the
coveted haven nearly simultaneously.

Miss Mehitable's umbrella decided the victory. She deftly moved it to
where a hurdle would have intervened for her rival in their foot-race,
and the preoccupied girl at the table looked up somewhat startled as a
red face atop a portly figure met her brown eyes in triumph. The girl
glanced at the defeated competitor and took in the