'Liza tells me, she
says."

"You ain't got no real call to thank me," was the placid reply. "I'd be
doing the same for any girl as good-looking as you be; and I'd be
hoping somebody'd do the same for my Helen Louise. It seems like it's
always most easiest for young folks to keep right on forgetting just
what they ought to be remembering."

"I know," said Arethusa apologetically. "But this is the first time I
ever traveled anywhere, and...."

Mrs. Cherry (for such was the name of Arethusa's latest friend) rescued
her small son from his repeated attempts to plunge through the glass in
the car window, before she turned around to continue the conversation.

"I should have said you had. You don't look so awfully citified, now I
come to think, but I should have certainly said you'd travelled. Who's
your Aunt 'Liza, you spoke about awhile back? Ain't you got no Ma?"

Mrs. Cherry was genuinely friendly, and she was safely feminine, so
Arethusa once more launched into a glowing description of what wonders
the future held in store, and to Mrs. Cherry's interested questioning,
told what the past had been like, Timothy and all.

"You certainly have got lots of folks to care about you," was the
comment, when the narrator finally paused for breath. "And you ain't
never seen your Pa? Well! Well! Helen Louise and Peter and me we're
going to the city to meet Helen Louise's Pa. He's got work there and
we're going to live there now."

Helen Louise smiled all over herself at this mention of her father, a
toothless smile, but of unmistakable joy, and Arethusa's heart went out
to her immediately. Here, very evidently, was another girl-child whose
affections were centered largely in a male parent.

"Helen Louise favors her Pa considerable. And they're the biggest geese
together!"

Helen Louise's silvery treble piped up. "Papa and me just play and
play!" She gave herself something like an anticipatory hug. "Gee, but
I'm going to be glad to see him! I ain't seen him for a whole year
now!"

"Helen Louise, don't you be telling Miss Worth'ton no story now!"
warned her mother. Names had been exchanged. "She ain't seen him for
more'n a month reely, but I reckon it does seem 'most a year to her."

Peter now joined his voice to the conversation for the first time, "Ma,
I'm hungry."

"Bless us! But it might be dinner time, now, mightn't it. Have you got
a watch, Miss Worth'ton?"

Arethusa reached down into her waistband and drew forth