scrap by the appearance of Aunt Bettie Pollard,
and with her came a long, tall, lovely vision of a woman in the most
wonderful close clingy dress and hat that you wanted to eat the minute
you saw it. I hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that
made me want to lie down at her feet, and also made me feel as though
I had gained all the more than twenty pounds that I have slaved off me
and doubled them on again. I would have liked to lead her that minute
into Dr. John's office and just to have looked at him and said one
word--"Scarlet-runner!" Aunt Betty introduced her as Miss Clinton from
London.

"Oh, my dear Mrs. Carter, how glad I am to meet you!" she said as she
towered over me in a willowy way, and her voice was lovely and cool
almost to slimness. "I am the bearer of so many gracious messages that
I am anxious to deliver them safely to you. Not six weeks ago I left
Alfred Bennett in Paris, and really--really his greetings to you almost
amounted to a pile of luggage. He came down to Cherbourg to see me off,
and almost the last thing he said to me was, 'Now, don't fail to see
Mrs. Carter as soon as you get to Hillsboro; and the more you see of her
the more you'll enjoy your visit to Mrs. Pollard.' Isn't he the most
delightful of men?" She asked me the question, but she had the most
wonderful way of seeming to be talking to everybody at one time, so
Mrs. Johnson got in the first answer.

"Delightful indeed! But Alfred Bennett is a man of sense not to marry
any of the string of women who I suppose are running after him!" she
said. Miss Clinton looked at her in a mild kind of wonder, but she went
on hacking Mr. Johnson's coat-sleeve with the needle without noticing
the glance at all.

"Well, well, dearie, I don't know about that," said Aunt Bettie as she
fanned and rocked her great, big, darling, fat self in the strong
rocking-chair I always kept for her. "Alfred is not old enough to have
proved himself entirely, and from what I hear--" she paused with the
big hearty smile that she always wears when she begins to tease or
match-make, and she does them both most of her time.

But at whom do you suppose she looked? Not me! Miss Clinton! That was
cold tub number two for that day, and I didn't react as quickly as I
might, but when I did I was in the proper glow all over. When I revived
and saw the lovely pale blush on her face I felt like a cabbage-rose
beside a tea-bud. I was glad Aunt Adeline came in just