; I have no doubt she finds it dull. Yes, we expect Allan in a week or
two, but there is no counting on him."

So absorbed were the listeners, they did not begin their retreat soon
enough, and their hostess, ushering Rosalind in, encountered a scene of
confusion. Katherine in the excitement fell backward over a footstool and
was rescued, flushed and shamefaced, by Jack Parton. Charlotte smoothed
her dress and tried to look dignified. Belle and Maurice were in fits of
laughter.

Miss Betty surveyed them in surprise. Rosalind stood beside her, and the
girls at once noted that she wore pink.

"Is anything the matter?" asked Miss Betty, observing Katherine's flushed
face. "I want to introduce Rosalind Whittredge to you. Rosalind, this is
Charlotte Ellis, and Katherine Roberts, and Belle Parton--"

Still laughing, Belle held out her hand. "We were peeping at you," she
said.

"Didn't you know I was coming in?" Rosalind asked, a gleam of fun in her
own eyes.

"We wanted to see Miss Genevieve," added Belle.

As Miss Betty proceeded to name the boys, Rosalind said, "Oh, I know
Maurice," quite as if he were an old friend; and she added, standing
beside him, "I am so much obliged to you for bringing my book home."

"Does Maurice know her?" whispered Belle.

Katherine nodded, although she had had her doubts until this minute.

Maurice was agreeably conscious of Belle's eyes as he talked to Rosalind.
He was not at all unwilling to have the distinction of being the only one
to know the new-comer.

"I read the story," he said. "I did not know till after you had gone that
it was one of Shakespeare's plays. We read Julius Caesar at school last
winter."

"I know that too," Rosalind answered. I have Lamb's stories. Cousin Louis
used to read them to me, and then from the real plays, but I like the
story of the Forest best."

"Dear me! they are talking about Shakespeare," Belle exclaimed.

Rosalind looked across the room at her, and smiled in a way that seemed an
invitation.

"It is a little funny for her to sit down beside a boy the first thing,
don't you think?" Charlotte said in a low tone to Katherine, who assented
because she was in the habit of agreeing with Charlotte.

Belle overheard. "Silly!" she said, and to show her scorn she went over
and sat on an arm of the sofa beside Rosalind.

"Do you like to read?" she asked.

Rosalind opened her eyes. "Of course I do, don't you?"

Belle, who had browsed in her fath