ly. "It was from a friend of mine; you do
not know him, Angie."

"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean to intrude.--Dear me! to-morrow's
Thanksgiving, and this wretched season is scarcely begun!"

It was a weary holiday for Willa and she sat through the elaborate
formal dinner with which the Halsteads celebrated it in an abstraction
of mood which gave two of her callow admirers much concern.

The presence of Kearn Thode's sister, however, brought her out of her
reverie and later, when Mrs. Beekman sought her out in the
drawing-room, Willa left her problem to take care of itself for the
hour in her interest in the breezy clear-eyed woman so like Kearn
himself.

"I must apologize for not coming yesterday, as I assured my brother I
would. An epidemic of something or other has broken out at my kennels
and I spent a disheartening and doggy afternoon." She laughed, adding
with sudden seriousness: "My brother has told me so many interesting
things of you, Miss Murdaugh, that I have wanted to really know you,
but I suppose you have been submerged in a sea of festivity with your
cousins. I am a gregarious person but not a conventionally social one.
I suppose that is why we have not happened to meet since that first
dinner; I do not follow the beaten path, as a rule."

"Nor I, except when I am led by the nose!" Willa responded, laughing,
too. "But tell me, is Mr. Thode improving?"

Mrs. Beekman gave her a swift, keen glance.

"Oh, yes! He suffered a mere scratch or two; you know what babies men
are about such things.--Look at them trailing in now from the
dining-room, fed up on the newest stories and the oldest cognac!
There's something almost tragic in their boredom, isn't there?"

Willa gasped, a little taken aback by her companion's cynical
frankness, and Mrs. Beekman laid an impulsive hand upon her arm.

"Come and lunch with me to-morrow; just we two. We'll have a nice
little chat and if Kearn comes bothering around I'll send him away. I
want you to tell me about Mexico."

Willa promised with an odd little thrill of warmth at her heart. With
the exception of fat, comfortable Sallie Bailey and old Tia Juana, the
girl had had no intimates of her own sex, and the competition appeared
to be so keen among the members of the set in which she found herself
that friendship was eyed askance as a subterfuge to be wary of.

The daily bulletins from Brooklyn were not encouraging, nor was Dan
Morrissey gaining ground in the se