my dear."

"We had quite a houseful for our party," Miss Pierce remarked, after
this self-approval. "And that reminds me that I must tell you about whom
you meet to-day." Then the next ten minutes were consumed in naming and
describing the two fashionable New York girls and their brother, who
made the party then assembled.

During this time Peter's eyes strayed from Watts's shapely back, and
took a furtive glance at Miss Pierce. He found that she was looking at
him as she talked, but for some reason it did not alarm him, as such
observation usually did. Before the guests were properly catalogued,
Peter was looking into her eyes as she rambled on, and forgot that he
was doing so.

The face that he saw was not one of any great beauty, but it was sweet,
and had a most attractive way of showing every change of mood or
thought. It responded quickly too, to outside influence. Many a girl of
more real beauty was less popular. People liked to talk to Miss Pierce,
and many could not escape from saying more than they wished, impelled
thereto by her ready sympathy. Then her eyes were really beautiful, and
she had the trimmest, dearest little figure in the world; "squeezable"
was the word Watts used to describe it, and most men thought the same.
Finally, she had a pleasant way of looking into people's eyes as she
talked to them, and for some reason people felt very well satisfied when
she did.

It had this effect upon Peter. As he looked down into the large gray
eyes, really slate-color in their natural darkness, made the darker by
the shadows of the long lashes, he entirely forgot place and
circumstances; ceased to think whose turn it was to speak; even forgot
to think whether he was enjoying the moment. In short he forgot himself
and, what was equally important, forgot that he was talking to a girl.
He felt and behaved as he did with men. "Moly hoses!" said Watts to
himself on the front seat, "the old fellow's getting loquacious.
Garrulity must be contagious, and he's caught it from Mr. Pierce."
Which, being reduced to actual facts, means that Peter had spoken eight
times, and laughed twice, in the half hour that was passed between the
station and the Shrubberies' gate.

CHAPTER V.

MINES AND COUNTER-MINES.

The sight of the party on the veranda of the Shrubberies brought a
return of self-consciousness to Peter, and he braced himself, as the
trap slowed up, for the agony of formal greetings. If Miss Pierce had
b