nd outdone even herself in the quality of her
scolding. She had gone so far as to make a threat of such a truly
horrible nature that it had turned Arethusa absolutely cold with the
fear that she might really carry it out.

Arethusa had every right to be very angry with Timothy.

Timothy gathered him another little heap of stones, and one by one,
with a perfect mastery of the art, skipped those all across the water.
But he did it very gloomily, with no apparent pleasure, hardly as if
conscious of what he were doing. And Arethusa continued to stare
straight before her as if she had found new and unexpected beauties in
a familiar landscape.

"I hate for us to be mad," said Timothy after awhile, making another
attempt to break the hostile little silence.

"So do I," replied Arethusa non-committally.

Timothy brightened.

"But I expect to be mad at you as long as I live," she continued, and
Timothy lapsed into gloom once more, "when you act the way you do. I
don't see why you want to be always bothering me about marrying you;
unless Aunt 'Liza puts you up to it. I don't want to marry you,
Timothy; and I'll never change my mind about it. You needn't ask me
again, ever. I want to be very good friends with you, because you're
the very oldest friend I've got, but we can't be friends if you're
going to be so silly and sentimental all the time. I hate sentimental
people!"

Had Timothy's sense of humor not deserted him absolutely, he must have
laughed at this; as it was, he took it very seriously.

Just then came a faint, "Ar----ee--thu----sa!" from the direction of
the house, and Arethusa rose quickly to answer the call.

"Oh, I forgot," Timothy rolled over. "Miss 'Titia called to me from the
house as I came by to tell you she was ready for you."

"Why didn't you tell me then, an hour ago? You've been here a half hour
at least and haven't said a word about it!"

"I forgot," replied Timothy humbly, thoroughly ground to the earth by
that speech of Arethusa's with its "I'll be a sister to you" tone.

"That's evident. She probably thinks I'm lost or something by this
time. If you weren't so busy always seeing how you can annoy me, you
might remember when people give you messages to deliver!" Arethusa
swept majestically off, bending her head to escape the low-growing
willow branches, and Timothy watched her miserably. But she had gone
only about six or seven paces when she turned and came back to him,
"And Timothy," she