her."

"But I don't want to," objected Bell, crossly. "I am not at all as fond
of Miss Vernor as you are."

"Naturally not," answered De Forest, pursuing his way undisturbed. "Men
always like girls better than girls do. I appreciate your feelings. But
she's got that good-looking young minister with her. You like him. All
feminine souls incline to clergymen next to officers. Buttons first; then
surplices."

"Thirdly, For(r)esters, I suppose," suggested Bell, saucily.

"Undoubtedly," assented her companion. "Miss Vernor, your humble
servant." His glance, as it invaribly did when they met, seemed to make
swift, approbative note of every smallest particular of her appearance.
"Mr. Halloway, here is a young lady who has just openly informed me that
she prefers you to me, so I suppose I must resign her to you with what
grace I can. Don't you think, Miss Vernor, you might try to divert my
mind from dwelling too cruelly on Miss Masters' defalcation by showing me
what Mr. Hardcastle's grand intellect has devised for my entertainment?
That bonfire yonder has a sort of cannibalistic look about it suggestive
of dancing negroes and unmentionable feasts behind the flames. Shall we
inspect it nearer?" And he marched Gerald deliberately away, scarcely
remembering to bow to Bell. Still, to be left with Mr. Halloway was by no
means an unenviable fate, and Bell, like the wise girl she was, proceeded
to make the most of it without delay, and paraded her prey wherever she
chose, finding him much more tractable than her last companion, and not
in the least dictatorial as to the direction he went in.

That out-door evening party was long remembered as one of the most novel
and successful entertainments ever given in Joppa. Even Mrs. Upjohn
admitted it to be very well, very well indeed, all but the dancing, for
which, however, Mr. Hardcastle apologized to her handsomely as a quite
unexpected ebullition of youthful spirits which in his soul he was far
from countenancing, and upon which she resolutely turned her back all the
evening, so at least not to be an eye-witness of the indecorum. Of
course, therefore, she knew nothing whatever about it when Mr. Upjohn
toward the end of the evening, actually allowed himself to be decoyed
into the gay whirl by one of the youngest and most daring of the girls,
and galloped clumsily around like a sportive and giddy elephant set free
for the first time in its native jungle, and finding it very much to its