herself to coaxing
her cousin's refractory locks to lie in the desired position. "It wants
to be just in the middle, for you're going to be the dearest little
dudelet you ever saw. Now take off your glasses."

"Oh, I must have those," remonstrated Charlie. "I'm blind as a bat
without them, and I shall be sure to run into something, and tip it
over."

"No, you won't," said Allie composedly. "If you wear them, people will
be sure to know you."

"But, if I take them off, my scar will show," argued Charlie; "and that
will give it all away. But, I say, I have some eye-glasses somewhere,
that the oculist gave me, to start with. I don't ever wear them, 'cause
they wouldn't stick to my nose. I lost them off into the soup, the first
night at dinner, and I bought my spectacles early the next morning; but
perhaps I can keep them on now."

"I should think you ought to; your nose is large enough," remarked
Allie, with calm disrespect. "But get them; I can tell better when I see
them."

There was an interval of silence, while Charlie rummaged in his bureau
drawers. At length he unearthed the little case from a box containing an
odd assortment of light hardware, broken knives, stray nails, an awl or
two, and a collection of trout reels and flies.

"Here 'tis," he said. "I remember now; I used it to wind my best line
on. How will they go?" And he turned to face his cousin, with a
conscious laugh which promptly dislodged the glasses from his nose.

"That's better," said Allie approvingly; "they don't look a bit the
same. I don't like them as well as I do the spectacles, for all the
time; but they change you more. Now remember to be very easy and
elegant, and don't act shy. Behave as if you thought you were very good
to speak to them, and they'll like you all the better. And be sure you
don't go too early."

"But what are you going to do now?" demanded Charlie, as she turned to
the door. "You aren't going to be mean enough to leave me here all
alone, till it's time to go?"

"I'm going to dress me," returned Allie. "I begged an invitation from
Marjorie, and I'm going over there with mamma. You don't suppose that
I'm going to lose all the fun, do you?" And she departed.

Society in Blue Creek was by no means as simple as a stranger might have
been led to expect. During the winter months, there were few evenings
that were not given up to some entertainment; and the little set to
which the Burnams and Fishers and Everetts belon