ed and turned his steps toward
the Senator's house.

CHAPTER III

IN BETTY'S GARDEN

Ned Vaughan paused with a moment of indecision before the plain,
old-fashioned, brick house in which Senator Winter lived on the Capitol
Hill. It was a confession of abject weakness to decline her invitation
to dinner with his brother and jump at the first chance to butt in
before the dinner hour.

Why should he worry? She was too serious and honest to play with any
man, to say nothing of an attempt to flirt with two at the same time.

He refused to believe in the seriousness of any impression she had made
on his brother's conceited fancy. His light love affairs had become
notorious in his set. He was only amusing himself with Betty and she was
too simple and pure to understand. Yet to warn her at this stage of the
game against his own brother was obviously impossible.

He suddenly turned on his heel:

"I'm a fool. I'll wait till to-morrow!"

He walked rapidly to the corner, stopped abruptly, turned back to the
door and rang the bell.

"Anyhow, I'm not a coward!" he muttered.

The pretty Irish maid who opened the door smiled graciously and
knowingly. It made him furious. She mistook his rage for blushes and
giggled insinuatingly.

"Miss Betty's in the garden, sor; she says to come right out there----"

"What?" Ned gasped.

"Yiss-sor; she saw you come up to the door just now and told me to tell
you."

Again the girl giggled and again he flushed with rage.

He found her in the garden, busy with her flowers. The border of tall
jonquils were in full bloom, a gorgeous yellow flame leaping from both
sides of the narrow walkway which circled the high brick wall covered
with a mass of honeysuckle. She held a huge pair of pruning shears,
clipping the honeysuckle away from the budding violet beds.

She lifted her laughing brown eyes to his.

"Do help me!" she cried. "This honeysuckle vine is going to cover the
whole garden and smother the house itself, I'm afraid."

He took the shears from her pink fingers and felt the thrill of their
touch for just a moment.

His eyes lingered on the beautiful picture she made with flushed face
and tangled ringlets of golden brown hair falling over forehead and
cheeks and white rounded throat. The blue gingham apron was infinitely
more becoming than the most elaborate ball costume. It suggested home
and the sweet intimacy of comradeship.

"You're lovely in that blue apron, Miss