m the eye. Judy herself looked unusually lovely in her
pretty gray serge piped in scarlet with Irish lace collar and cuffs.
There were glints of gold in her fluffy hair and her eyes shone with
unusual brightness. But Mrs. McLean's good food tasted as sawdust on
her palate and the conversation of the eager Dodo sounded trite and
stupid to her. Once she had said a word or two to Jimmy Lufton and he
had turned and answered her politely and agreeably, but as soon as he
decently could he was back with Molly again deep in bluegrass
reminiscences.

There were other people who were disgruntled that morning at Mrs.
McLean's breakfast. Not Nance and Andy, who seemed well pleased with
themselves and the bright fall day; not the doctor nor the doctor's wife
beaming at her guests behind the silver tea urn, but Otoyo was strangely
silent and averted her face from Molly's if by chance their glances met;
looked carefully over Nance's head and avoided Judy's gaze as much as
possible. Lawrence Upton, too, had little to say, except to Dr. McLean
at his end of the table.

So it was that half the guests thought the breakfast had been a great
success and the other half put it down as stupid and dull.

"Would anybody like to go over to the _Commune_ office with us?" Molly
vouchsafed some three-quarters of an hour later when the company was
breaking up. "I am going to show Mr. Lufton our offices."

But nobody seemed anxious to accept.

"You'll come, won't you, Judy?" Molly asked.

No, Judy had other things to do apparently.

"Won't you come, Otoyo, dear?" asked Molly, slipping her arm around the
little Japanese's waist and giving it a squeeze.

"It is not possible. I am exceedingly sorrowful," answered Otoyo a
little stiffly and drew away from Molly's embrace.

"Aren't you well, little one?" asked Molly. "Is anything the matter?"

"Oh, exceedingly, quite well, but I cannot go to-day, Mees Brown," Otoyo
answered, trying to infuse a little warmth into her tone.

So it ended by Molly's going off alone with the young man from New York
to the _Commune_ office, where she showed him their files and the
proofs sent up by the printer in the village, which had to be corrected;
then she introduced him into the little alcove office where Edith was
wont to write her famous editorials.

"How would you like to write an article for my paper, Miss Brown?" Jimmy
asked suddenly. "We run a page of college news, you know."

He had no idea that Molly