nge in any one?" asked a dowager, levelling
her keen glances from her box down upon the merry party.

"Never; it was the one thing needed to make him quite perfect," said
another one of that set. "He is approachable now--absolutely
fascinating, so genial and courteous."

"His manners were perfect before," said a third member of the box party,
"except they needed thawing out--a bit too icy."

"You are too mild. I should say they were quite frozen. He never seemed
to me to have any heart."

"Well, it's proved he has," observed her husband. "I tell you that
little Pepper girl is going to make a sensation when she comes out,"
leaning over for a better view of the King party, "and the best of it
is that she doesn't know it herself."

And Clare made up his mind that Cathie Harrison was an awfully nice
girl; and he was real glad she had moved to town and joined the
Salisbury School. And as he had two cousins there, they soon waked up a
conversation over them.

"Only I don't know them much," said Cathie. "You see I haven't been at
the school long, and besides, the girls didn't have much to say to me
till Polly Pepper said nice things to me, and then she asked me to go to
the bee."

"That old sewing thing where they make clothes for the poor little
darkeys down South?" asked Clare.

"Yes; and it's just lovely," said Cathie, "and I never supposed I'd be
asked. And Polly Pepper came down to my desk one day, and invited me to
come to the next meeting, and I was so scared, I couldn't say anything
at first; and then Polly got me into the Salisbury Club."

"Oh, yes, I know." Clare nodded, and wished he could forget how he had
asked one of the other boys on that evening when the two clubs united,
why in the world the Salisbury Club elected Cathie Harrison into its
membership.

"And then Polly Pepper's mother invited me to visit her--Polly, I
mean--and so here I am"--she forgot she was talking to a dreaded boy,
and turned her happy face toward him--"and it's just lovely. I never
visited a girl before."

"Never visited a girl before!" repeated Clare, in astonishment.

"No," said Cathie. "You see, my father was a minister, and we lived in
the country, and when I visited anybody, which was only two or three
times in my life, it was to papa's old aunts."

"Oh dear me!" exclaimed Clare faintly, quite gone in pity.

"And so your father moved to town," he said; and then he knew that he
had made a terrible mistake.

"Now she