illingness:--

"I guess so."

"Now what do you want to say that for?" rang her mother's voice from an
upper window, where, trusting to her distance from the road, she thought
she could speak her mind without Isabel's hearing. "You know you ain't.
Oliver's gone off to work in the acre lot."

Isabel had heard. She stood regarding Ardelia thoughtfully, her black
brows drawn together and her teeth set upon one full lip.

"Ardelia," she called softly, after that moment of consideration.

"What is it?" came Ardelia's unwilling voice, the tone of one who has
emotion to conceal.

"Come here a minute."

Ardelia rose slowly and came down the path. She was a wisp of a
creature, perfectly fashioned and very appealing in her blond
prettiness. Isabel eyed her sharply and judged from certain signs that
she had at least meant to go. She had on her light-blue dimity with the
Hamburg frills, and her sorrowful face indicated that she had donned it
to no avail.

"What time you goin', 'Delia?" asked Isabel quietly, over the fence.

Ardelia could not look at her. She stood with bent head, busily
arranging a spray of coreopsis that fell out over the path, and Isabel
was sure her eyes were wet.

"I don't know," she said evasively; "maybe not very early."

Isabel was looking at her tenderly. It was not a personal tenderness so
much as a softness born out of peculiar circumstance. She knew exactly
why she was sorry for Ardelia in a way no one else could be. Yet there
seemed to be no present means of helping her.

"Well," she said, turning away, "maybe I'll see you there. Say, 'Delia!"
A sudden thought was brightening her eyes to even a kinder glow. "If you
haven't planned any other way, s'pose you go with us. Jim Bryant's goin'
to take me, and he'd admire to have you, too. What say, 'Delia?"

Ardelia's delicate figure straightened, and now she looked at Isabel.
There was something new in her gentle glance. It looked like dignity.

"I'm much obliged to you, Isabel," she returned stiffly. "If I go, I've
arranged to go another way."

"All right," said Isabel. "Well, I guess I'll be gettin' along."

But before she was half-way to the turning of the road she heard Mrs.
Drake's shrill voice from the upper window:--

"He's begun to dig, 'Delia. Oliver's begun to dig. He won't stop for no
picnics, I can tell ye that."

It seemed to Isabel as if the world were very much out of tune for
delicate girls like 'Delia who wanted pleasure