e always wanted a daughter. I hope you will love me, too."

She kissed the girl again, on the lips this time, and there was fervor
in the return.

The next day Mrs. Barry telephoned to half a dozen of her son's girl
friends and invited them to come to a sewing-bee and help with the
curtains for her cottage. She said that Miss Melody was visiting her and
that she would like them to know her. So they all came, wild with
curiosity to see the girl that their own Ben had kidnapped and who was
going to make him forget them; and Geraldine won them all by her modesty
and naturalness. The fact that Ben's mother had accepted her gave her
courage in the face of this bevy who had grown up with her lover from
childhood. They were too uncertain of the exact status of affairs
between the beautiful stranger and their old friend to speak openly of
him to her, but almost every reminiscence or subject of which they
talked led up to Ben. Of course, some among the six pairs of eyes
leveled at Geraldine had a green tinge, and there were some girlish
heartaches; and when the chattering flock had had their tea and cakes
and left for home, there were certain ones who discussed the
impossibility of there being anything serious in the wind.

Ben was not even at home. Would he have gone away for an indefinite time
as his mother said he had done, if he was as engrossed in the girl as
gossip had said? Had not that very gossip proceeded from the humble
walls of Miss Upton's shop where the stranger had apparently found her
level? The Barrys had always held such a fine position, etc., etc., etc.

"Oh, but," said Adele Hastings, "that girl is a lady. Every movement and
word proves it."

"Besides," added another maiden, "her being humble wouldn't have
anything to do with it. It never has, from the time of King Cophetua
on."

"Well," put in the poor little girl with the greenest eyes of all, "I
think it is very significant that Ben has gone away. You notice Mrs.
Barry didn't invite her to come until he had gone, and that common Mrs.
Whipp called her by her first name. I heard her myself."

On the whole, Geraldine had scored, and really, although she was at
peace with the whole world, the fact of Mrs. Barry's approval dwarfed
every other opinion and event; for it meant that no longer need she set
up a mental warning and barrier against thoughts of her lover.

A few days afterward Ben telephoned to have Lamson at the station at a
certain hour, and