I never was at anything but a High School tea or
something of that sort," she added artlessly. "But the refreshments
made me ill; really, I was quite sick."

The lady looked both amused and interested, and Elizabeth rattled on:

"You see, I got my ice-cream in a mould--a little chicken; what was
yours?"

"A rose, I think--some sort of flower."

"Oh, that would be lovely!--to eat a rose. But mine was a chicken, and
before I thought I cut his poor little pink head off with my spoon.
And it reminded me of the day when we were little and my brother John
made me hold our poor old red rooster while he chopped his head off
with the ax, and of course it made me sick, and I just had to run away."

"You mustn't let your imagination play tricks with your digestion that
way."

"It shows that the refined part of me must be just a thin veneer on the
outside," said Elizabeth, her eyes twinkling. "I don't believe my
insides are a bit genteel, or I'd never have thought of the rooster."

"Well, you are a treat," said the lady--"Miss--Miss--why, I don't even
know your name, child."

"It's Elizabeth Gordon," said the owner of the name, adding with some
dignity--"Elizabeth Jarvis Gordon."

"Elizabeth Jarvis Gordon!" repeated the lady, half-rising, an
expression of pleasure illuminating her face, "Why--surely, my little
namesake! Don't you remember me?"

"Oh," cried Elizabeth, overwhelmed by the memory of her indiscretions.
"It isn't--is it--Mrs. Jarvis?"

"It really is!" cried the lady very cordially. She drew the girl down
and kissed her. "And I'm delighted to meet you again, Elizabeth Jarvis
Gordon, you're the most refreshing thing I've seen in years!"

CHAPTER XIV

WHEN LIFE WAS BEAUTY

No. 15, Seaton Crescent, Toronto, was a students' boarding-house. Mrs.
Dalley, the landlady, declared every day of the university term that
they were the hardest set going for a body to put up with.
Nevertheless, being near the college buildings, she put up with them,
both going and coming, and No. 15 was always full. A short street was
Seaton Crescent proper, running between a broad park which bordered the
college campus, and a big business thoroughfare. At one end
street-cars whizzed up and down with clanging bells, and crowds of busy
shoppers hurried to and fro; at the other end spread the green
stretches of a park, and farther over stood the stately university.
buildings. A street of student boarding-houses it was, a