nto his throat, so demure she looked and so lovely.

"I've come home, dear, so that you can go," explained Mrs. Smith. "Dr.
Watkins will take you back."

Gertrude had given Mrs. Smith's escort one startled glance as they
entered.

"Thank you very much indeed," she answered. "You are always so
thoughtful. But I'm not going out again tonight. It's quite out of the
question; please don't urge me," and she left the room without a look at
the disappointed face of the young doctor.

"Now, what does that mean?" he inquired in amazement.

"You ought to know."

"I don't know. Do you?"

"I think I do."

"Won't you tell me?"

"If you think over any conversations you have had recently about Miss
Merriam perhaps it will come to you."

"And you won't tell me?"

"I may be a wrong interpreter. At any rate I'm not an interferer. Your
affairs are your own."

"That's a very slender hint you've given me, but I'll do my best with
it."

His best was of small avail. Miss Merriam would not see him when he
called, did not go anywhere where she would be likely to meet him, bowed
to him so coldly when she passed him one day going into the house, that
he actually did not have the courage to stop her, but rang the bell and
asked for Mrs. Smith.

The Ethels and Dorothy felt that the part of courtesy was to preserve a
civil silence, but they were consumed with curiosity to know just what
was going on. Certainly Miss Gertrude was not happy, for she often
looked as if she had been weeping, and certainly Dr. Watkins was
wretched, for Tom and Della quite immediately reported him as being "so
solemn you can't do anything with him." Indeed, at the April Fool party
which the Hancocks gave to the U. S. C., he indulged in an outburst that
startled them all.

Margaret and James had asked him because the Club had formed the habit
of doing so when they were undertaking anything special. The Ethels were
quite right when they guessed that he accepted the invitation because he
hoped to see Miss Merriam there. She did not go, offering as an excuse
that Ayleesabet needed her.

The April Fool party might have been named the Party of Surprises. There
were no practical jokes;--"a joke of the hand is a joke of the vulgar"
had been trained into all of them from their earliest days;--but there
were countless surprises. The opening of a candy box disclosed a toy
puppy; a toy cat was filled not with the desired candy but with popcorn.
The candy was han