ions.

She went straight from school to Mabel's, running all the way in her
anxious haste. The fresh wind and the exertion of running had a
beneficial effect upon her, both physically and mentally, for by the
time she arrived at Mr. Chartres' door, the feverish flush was replaced
by a healthy glow, and the strange, indefinable feeling of restlessness
which had all day possessed her, seemed to have been swept away by the
breath of the wind.

Mabel was still in bed, her aunt informed Minnie, though in her opinion,
she was considerably better, and requested her to go up herself to
Mabel's bedroom.

Minnie needed no second invitation, but immediately flew upstairs, and
opening the door softly, peeped in before she entered. She was lying
with her eyes closed, but the opening of the door, quietly though it was
done, caused her to unclose them again just as Minnie looked in. She
looked very pale and exhausted, but brightened up wonderfully under the
influence of Minnie's cheerfulness, and was altogether so much better by
the time for her departure, that she felt persuaded she would be able to
attend school again on the morrow.

"That notion about influenza, you know," she remarked confidentially to
Minnie, "was nothing more than a delusion on aunt's part. I have really
no more influenza than she as herself, but she must have some reason for
my being ill, and there would be no use contradicting her, unless I
could supply a reason myself, which I can't. I thought it just as well
to let it be influenza as anything else."

Minnie agreed that perhaps it was, and conjuring her to "shake herself
up" and be out to-morrow, departed.

That night, after tea she was sitting in the parlour with her two
brothers, Archie and Seymour, the one of whom, Seymour, was older than
she, and the other, Archie, a year younger.

"I say, Min," began Archie, "aren't you going to tell us what the row
was on Saturday night? What mysterious traffic is going on between you
and Charlie? I was teasing him to tell me yesterday, but he was as
silent as the Sphinx."

"And what if I intend to be as silent as that famous monument also?"
Asked Minnie.

"O, come now!" Replied he, in a coaxing tone, "you couldn't, you know,
you're just dying to tell, as much as I am to hear what before-unheard
of circumstance induced him to turn out on a Saturday night, and a wet
and stormy one too."

"Am I?" She asked, looking at him with a provokingly doubtful
expressi