er favorite shade and a white felt hat with a band of the same
material about it. No costume could have been simpler, and yet
excitement or pleasure or some unusual emotion had made the girl's color
brighter in her eyes, her cheeks and even her hair, so that there seemed
a kind of mysterious shining about her like a star--a glow which Polly
O'Neill recognized instantly as she took her place beside her in the
carriage with Anthony Graham in front with the driver and Miss Adams and
Mrs. Ashton together on the back seat. Indeed, it inspired Polly to give
her friend rather a malicious pinch which actually hurt a little and yet
for which she would neither apologize nor explain. Betty presumed that
it must have something to do with Anthony Graham's presence, since
Polly immediately began making herself more than usually agreeable to
him, insisting that he give them his impressions of Germany and the
Germans, when Anthony would much have preferred remaining silent. Polly
hoped that thus she might be enabled to make her friend realize how much
cleverer and more worth while an American fellow was than any blond
Siegfried whom she might have met by accident in a foreign land.

Carl von Reuter's old feudal estate, however, was picturesque enough to
excite even Polly's undivided admiration, as they drove along an avenue
of oak trees, some of them more than a century old, and crossed a
drawbridge over a moat, which now formed the bed of a stream flowing
down from the hills.

Outside in the garden in front of the house the visitors found
Lieutenant von Reuter, his cousin Frederick and his father walking about
in the afternoon sunshine waiting to receive their guests. And the young
count wore his full dress uniform as an officer in one of the Kaiser's
regiments. He was undeniably handsome, and there was no doubt but that
he and Betty made a striking picture as they stood side by side for a
moment before entering the house, while the young man showed the girl
the view of their hunting forests over to the right where she had had
her accident.

Tea was served in the most splendid apartment that either the two
American girls or Anthony Graham had ever seen before in their lives.
Perhaps there was some motive in their host's inviting them into the big
banqueting hall in an upper part of the castle rather than in the shabby
drawing rooms on the first floor, where the poverty of the family was so
much more apparent. But even if this were t