ord!

Beth made Charlotte captain of the band; and drills, bathing rites,
and other mysteries were regularly conducted, the girls being bound
together more securely by the fascination of Beth's discourses, and
the continual interest she managed to inspire, than by any respect
they had for an oath. Beth's interest in them extended to the smallest
detail of their lives. She knew which would be absent from drill
because it was washing-day, and which was weak for want of food; and
she resumed her poaching habits--only on Uncle James Patten's estate,
of course--and, having beguiled a gunsmith into letting her have an
air-gun on credit, she managed to snare and shoot birds enough to
relieve their necessities to an appreciable extent. She never let any
one into the secret of those supplies, and the mystery added greatly
to her credit with the girls.

That season some friends of the Benyons brought their boys to stay at
Rainharbour for the holidays, and Beth varied her other pursuits by
rambling about with them, Lady Benyon having seen to it that she made
their acquaintance legitimately, for the old lady shrewdly suspected
that Beth was already beginning to attract attention. From her post of
observation in the window she had seen young men turn in the street
and look back at the slender girl, in spite of her short petticoats,
with more interest than many a maturer figure aroused; and she had
heard that Beth Caldwell was already much discussed. Beth's brother
Jim, when he came home that summer, also began to introduce her to his
young men friends in the neighbourhood, so that very soon Beth had
quite a little court about her on the pier when the band played. She
liked the boys, and the young men she found an absorbing study; but
not one of them touched her heart. Her acquaintance with Alfred had
made her fastidious. He had had sense enough to respect her, and his
companionship had given her a fine foretaste of the love that is
ennobling, the love that makes for high ideals of character and
conduct, for fine purpose, spiritual power, and intellectual
development, the one kind worth cultivating. In these more
sophisticated youths she found nothing soul-sustaining. She
philandered with some of them up to the point where comparisons become
inevitable, and, so long as they met her in a spirit of frank
camaraderie, it was agreeable enough; but when, with their commonplace
minds, they presumed to be sentimental, they became intolera