he is just perfectly lovely!"

"Well, I'm glad you had such a nice time together. Do you know, some
of the girls were very much vexed because she wasn't asked to the
picnic. They said that it was sheer rudeness not to ask her, and that
it reflected on us all, even if Patty and Wilhelmina were responsible
for it. I'm afraid we girls at Miss Braxton's have been getting
snobbish, and some of us are beginning to find it out and be ashamed
of it."

"Just wait until school opens," said Nan--vaguely enough, it would
seem. But Maude understood.

However, they did not have to wait until school opened. Long before
that time Winboro girlhood discovered that the Wallace girls were
taking Florrie Hamilton into their lives. If the Wallace girls liked
her, there must be something in the girl more than was at first
thought--thus more than one of Miss Braxton's girls reasoned. And
gradually the other girls found, as Nan had found, that Florrie was
full of fun and an all-round good companion when drawn out of her
diffidence. When Miss Braxton's school reopened Florrie was the class
favourite. Between her and Nan Wallace a beautiful and helpful
friendship had been formed which was to grow and deepen through their
whole lives.

"And all because Maude in a fit of abstraction wrote 'Hamilton' for
'Hastings,'" said Nan to herself one day. But that is something
Florrie Hamilton will never know.

An Unpremeditated Ceremony

Selwyn Grant sauntered in upon the assembled family at the homestead
as if he were returning from an hour's absence instead of a western
sojourn of ten years. Guided by the sound of voices on the still,
pungent autumnal air, he went around to the door of the dining room
which opened directly on the poppy walk in the garden.

Nobody noticed him for a moment and he stood in the doorway looking at
them with a smile, wondering what was the reason of the festal air
that hung about them all as visibly as a garment. His mother sat by
the table, industriously polishing the best silver spoons, which, as
he remembered, were only brought forth upon some great occasion. Her
eyes were as bright, her form as erect, her nose--the Carston
nose--as pronounced and aristocratic as of yore.

Selwyn saw little change in her. But was it possible that the tall,
handsome young lady with the sleek brown pompadour and a nose
unmistakably and plebeianly Grant, who sat by the window doing
something to a heap of lace and organdy in he