you at running, Charles Stuart MacAllister."

This was a fact Charles Stuart could not contradict. Elizabeth was the
wind itself for speed, and many a time he and John had tried in vain to
leave her behind. But her brother knew a manoeuvre that always brought
capitulation from the enemy. He turned away and walked for some paces
at Charles Stuart's side, then glanced back at Elizabeth resolutely
following.

"Aw, you're a nice one," he exclaimed, "followin' boys when they're
goin' swimmin'!"

Elizabeth stopped motionless in the pathway. One might bear slights
and indignities, even positive opposition, but the insinuation that one
was vulgar enough to go swimming at all, much more with boys, was an
insult no human being could stand. She turned away slowly, and, as the
two inexorable figures went on down the willow path into the ravine,
she dropped upon the earth and burst into despairing sobs. To be left
so cruelly was bad enough, but what hurt most was John's horrible
innuendo. It fairly scorched Elizabeth's soul.

She was lying prone upon the clover-starred grass, weeping bitterly,
when she was aroused by a rustle in the willows. A face was looking
through the green tangle.

"Aw, hurrah, Lizzie," Charles Stuart was saying, "come on. We're only
in fun. We ain't goin' swimmin' at all."

"I won't," wailed Elizabeth. "John doesn't want me; he never does, and
I'm going right back home."

Through her vanishing tears she had seen John approaching, and had
suddenly became conscious of the fact that if she returned home weeping
she would be questioned and matters might not be so comfortable for
John. That the young man recognized the danger himself was evident,
for he added his olive branch to Charles Stuart's. "Hurrah, Lizzie.
Don't be such a baby. Come along. We can't wait."

But Elizabeth was a woman to the very tips of her long, tapering
fingers, and finding herself in a position of power was not going to
capitulate at once. It was delightful to be coaxed, and by the boys,
too. So she merely sat up and, gazing back up the lane, sighed in a
hopeless way and said, "You don't want me, I know you don't, I might as
well go back."

"Come on, you silly," cried John, now thoroughly alarmed. "Come on
now. Mind you, we won't wait. Hurrah, Charles Stuart, and she can
stay if she likes."

They started down the ravine again; and, seeing that her air of grieved
dignity was liable to be lost in the willows,