all
likely to guess what had happened. Arethusa felt as if she could not
bear to meet Billy Watts again, or the still faithful Mr. Harrison; or
any single, solitary one of the boys and girls she had come to know so
well these last few weeks. They had all teased her for her adoration of
Mr. Bennet, and as friendly as that teasing surely was, she could not
trust herself to face it again.

And so, early the very next morning, she took the train for Home. She
had so much more to put in her little trunk than she had had when she
came that Elinor had sent down town and got her a brand new one to take
with her instead, and she carried, as a successor to the ancient
handbag with which she had come, a smart little traveling case all
fitted out inside, that had been one of her gifts for Christmas. But
some dim idea of not hurting Miss Letitia's feelings made her don for
this returning journey the quaint little blue suit her aunt had made
her.

Everyone in that big house, from Ross and Elinor on down the scale of
its inmates to even the outside man who cut the grass and hedges in the
summer and cared for the furnace in the winter, was sorry to see her
leave them. George forgot his immeasurable dignity as a butler long
enough for an excited display of real feeling in begging her most
earnestly "to come back again, real soon." Nettie was red-eyed as she
packed, the trunk. She would miss Arethusa dreadfully. She was young,
and she loved Parties as much as the debutante herself, and it was
almost as good as going to them to help Miss Arethusa get ready for
them, and then to hear such glowing and vivid descriptions of those
Festivities as hers were when she returned home. Clay could hardly
guide his car. He, also, was going to miss Arethusa dreadfully.

"You must come back, Arethusa," said Elinor, over and over again. "You
must be sure to come back, and soon. For this is just as much your home
as that, you know, dear."

And Arethusa promised that she would. She surely did mean to come back,
some day. But right now she only wanted Miss Asenath.

The returning traveller was armed, as well as with her legitimate
luggage, with a huge box of candy with a flamboyantly colored lady on
its top, the shy gift of Clay; a bunch of violets identically like the
ones which had to be destroyed yesterday, from Ross; and a most
superior package of lunch that Rosalia, most marvelous of cooks, had
prepared every bit with her own hands. This really h