e
whole thing away the first dash out of the box. You are too honest to
engage in such a frame-up as this, Mary Louise."

"I'm no more honest than you are."

"Well, perhaps our fundamentals are about the same, but I have to
pretend to be a lot of things I am not, to work out my principles and I
am sure you couldn't pretend to be anything but just dear, sweet Mary
Louise Dexter if your life, or even your dear Danny's life, depended on
it. Could you paint your face and be a vulgar minx as I am being just
now?"

"I--I--don't know."

"I bet you could," put in Elizabeth. "You have never yet failed to do
what it was up to you to do and I believe you could even do that."

Mary Louise laughed. "I could but try if my doing it would help
anybody. Good luck to you, Josie dear!"

And the next moment Josie was gone on her great adventure.

Atlanta had on its smiling, spring face when Josie arrived. The air was
soft and balmy and everything smelt of violets. They were growing
everywhere, on the poor streets as well as the more pretentious ones. A
house was lowly indeed that did not boast a bit of yard with borders of
violets by fence and walk. Old colored women sat on the corners with
huge bunches of violets for sale. Pretty girls walked on the streets
with corsage bouquets of the fragrant flowers.

"Poor little Polly and Peter! No wonder they are homesick for Atlanta,"
was Josie's first thought.

She found lodgings in a quaint little old hotel called the Elberta Inn.
Everything in Atlanta seemed to Josie to have something to do with
peaches--Peachtree Street, West Peachtree Street, Peachtree Terrace,
Peachtree Gardens. Then hotels and inns bore the name where they could
and others named themselves after famous brands of peaches, such as
Elberta.

"What's in a name?" sighed Josie when, at her very first dinner in her
new quarters, dried apple pies were shamelessly served.

The landlady of the Elberta Inn was as thin as the landlady at 126 East
Centre was fat. Her name was Miss Oleander Denton. She was quick to let
each prospective guest know that she had seen better days.

"My grandfather would turn over in his grave if he knew that one of his
female descendants was at work and all," she whispered to Josie. "We
owned thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves and all."

Sometimes Miss Oleander was known to reverse this statement, having her
grandfather own hundreds of acres and thousands of slaves. Whatever it
was, po