nks to you."

She answered, simply: "You needn't thank anybody; but it was Jeff who
thought of it; we were ready enough to ask you."

"That was very good of him," said Westover, whom her words confirmed in a
suspicion he had had all along. But what did it matter that Jeff had
suggested their asking him, and then attributed the notion to them? It
was not so malign for him to use that means of ingratiating himself with
Westover, and of making him forget his behavior with Lynde, and it was
not unnatural. It was very characteristic; at the worst it merely proved
that Jeff was more ashamed of what he had done than he would allow, and
that was to his credit.

He heard Cynthia asking: "Mr. Westover, have you ever been at Class Day?
He wants us to come."

"Class Day? Oh, Class Day!" He took a little time to gather himself
together. "Yes, I've been at a good many. If you care to see something
pretty, it's the prettiest thing in the world. The students' sisters and
mothers come from everywhere; and there's fashion and feasting and
flirting, from ten in the morning till ten at night. I'm not sure there's
so much happiness; but I can't tell. The young people know about that. I
fancy there's a good deal of defeat and disappointment in it all. But if
you like beautiful dresses, and music and dancing, and a great flutter of
gayety, you can get more of it at Class Day than you can in any other
way. The good time depends a great deal upon the acquaintance a student
has, and whether he is popular in college." Westover found this road a
little impassable, and he faltered.

Cynthia did not apparently notice his hesitation. "Do you think Mrs.
Durgin would like it?"

"Mrs. Durgin?" Westover found that he had been leaving her out of the
account, and had been thinking only of Cynthia's pleasure or pain. "Well,
I don't suppose--it would be rather fatiguing--Did Jeff want her to come
too?"

"He said so."

"That's very nice of him. If he could devote himself to her; but--And
would she like to go?"

"To please him, she would." Westover was silent, and the girl surprised
him by the appeal she suddenly made to him. "Mr. Westover, do you believe
it would be very well for either of us to go? I think it would be better
for us to leave all that part of his life alone. It's no use in
pretending that we're like the kind of people he knows, or that we know
their ways, and I don't believe--"

Westover felt his heart rise in indignant sympathy.