s she leaned out a white camellia fell from her bosom to
the snow beneath. In an instant Jack Morson was off his horse and the
flower was in his hand. "We'll bring back all that we take away," he
answered gallantly, his fair boyish face as red as Virginia's.

Dan could have kicked him for the words, but he merely said savagely, "Have
you left your pocket handkerchief?" and turned Prince Rupert toward the
road. When he looked back from beneath the silver poplars, the girls were
still standing at the open window, the cold wind flushing their cheeks and
blowing the brown hair and the red together.

Virginia was the first to turn away. "Come in, you'll take cold," she said,
going to the fire. "Peggy Harrison never goes out when the wind blows, you
know, she says it's dreadful for the complexion. Once when she had to come
back from town on a March day, she told me she wore six green veils. I
wonder if that's the way she keeps her lovely colour?"

"Well, I wouldn't be Peggy Harrison," returned Betty, gayly, and she added
in the same tone, "so Mr. Morson got your camellia, after all, didn't he?"

"Oh, he begged so hard with his eyes," answered Virginia. "He had seen me
give Dan a white rose on Christmas Eve, you know, and he said it wasn't
fair to be so unfair."

"You gave Dan a white rose?" repeated Betty, slowly. Her face was pale, but
she was smiling brightly.

Virginia's soft little laugh pealed out. "And it was your rose, too,
darling," she said, nestling to Betty like a child. "You dropped it on the
stair and I picked it up. I was just going to take it to you because it
looked so lovely in your hair, when Dan came along and he would have it,
whether or no. But you don't mind, do you, just a little bit of white
rosebud?" She put up her hand and stroked her sister's cheek. "Men are so
silly, aren't they?" she added with a sigh.

For a moment Betty looked down upon the brown head on her bosom; then she
stooped and kissed Virginia's brow. "Oh, no, I don't mind, dear," she
answered, "and women are very silly, too, sometimes."

She loosened Virginia's arms and went slowly upstairs to her bedroom, where
Petunia was replenishing the fire. "You may go down, Petunia," she said as
she entered. "I am going to put my things to rights, and I don't want you
to bother me--go straight downstairs."

"Is you gwine in yo' chist er draws?" inquired Petunia, pausing upon the
threshold.

"Yes, I'm going into my chest of drawers, but