nia creeper, stood at the end of a
long avenue, in the centre of a broad lawn planted in fine old elms.

"Yes, there must be some reason for the dinner, but Sarah Berkeley did
not tell me."

"Well, I'll be glad to see the Governor again," said the Judge, leaning
comfortably back as the car rolled down the avenue to the road, "but you
will have a dreary evening, I fear, unless John should be there."

Corinna smiled in the darkness. So even her father, who so rarely
noticed anything, had observed her growing interest in John Benham.
After all, might this be--this sudden revival of an old sentiment in
John's heart--"the something different," the ultimate perfection for
which she had sought all her life? "He is beginning to mean more to me
than any one else," she thought. "If only I had never heard that old
gossip about Alice Rokeby."

Leaning over, she patted the Judge's hand. "Don't have me on your mind,
Father darling. Go ahead and enjoy the Governor as much as you can. I am
easy to amuse, you know, and besides, I have my own particular iron in
the fire to-night."

"You are never without expedients, my child, but I hope this one has no
bearing on Vetch."

"Oh, but it has. Like Esther, the queen, I have put on royal apparel for
an ulterior object. Did you notice that I had made myself as terrible as
an army with banners?"

"I thought you were looking unusually lovely," replied the Judge
gracefully. "But you are always so handsome that I suspected no guile."

Corinna laughed merrily. "But I am full of guile, dear innocent! I go
forth to conquer."

"Not the Governor, I hope?"

"Oh, no, the Governor is nothing--a prize, nothing more. My antagonist
is Mrs. Stribling."

"Rose Stribling?" The Judge was mildly astonished. "Why, I remember her
as a little girl in white dresses."

Corinna's smile became scornful. "Well, she isn't a little girl any
longer, and she oughtn't to be in white dresses."

"Dear me, dear me," rejoined the old gentleman. "I am aware that you
have a dramatic temperament, but it is scarcely possible that you are
jealous of little Rose. She is a good deal younger than you, if I am not
mistaken--but my memory is not all that it once was."

"She is twelve years younger and at least twenty years more malicious,"
retorted Corinna lightly. "But those twelve years aren't as long as they
were in your youth, my dear. A generation ago they would have spelt an
end of my conquests; to-day they mean only