k you just the same. I have several things to buy at the
stores, and then I am going for a walk. I would ask you to go with me,
only you are going to Jerry's."

"I'd love to," a touch of Marjorie's old heartiness came to the surface,
"but I promised Jerry I'd surely go to see her to-day."

"Perhaps we can take a walk some other day," remarked Mary vaguely as
they rose from the table.

"I will take you both for a ride this afternoon, if you are good,"
volunteered Mrs. Dean. She had been observing the signs. She decided,
within herself, that matters were assuming a more hopeful turn. Yet she
had long since left the two girls to work out their problem in their own
way.

"That will be splendid!" cried Marjorie.

"I should like to go," acceded Mary almost shyly.

Mrs. Dean smiled to herself and saw light ahead. The barrier seemed
about to crumble.

But as the days went by, both she and Marjorie grew puzzled over the
change in blue-eyed Mary. She had, indeed, lost her belligerent spirit
of animosity, but a profound melancholy had settled down upon her like a
pall. Gradually it became noised about in school that Mary Raymond and
Mignon La Salle were no longer on speaking terms. Why this was so, no
one knew. Mary was mute on the subject. For once, also, the French girl
had nothing to say. As it happened, she believed that no one of the
guests had witnessed the scene between herself and Mary, and to try to
relate it, even with emendations of her own, would hardly redound to her
credit. She was too shrewd not to know that the average person resents
an affront against childhood. Then, too, Constance Stevens was making
rapid strides toward popularity among the girls of Sanford High School
and her cowardly nature warned her to be silent. But her chief reason
for silence lay in the fact that Mary had curtly informed her on the
Monday morning following the party that she had seen Charlie safely
home, that so far as she could learn his family did not know who had
escorted him home, and that if she, Mignon, were wise she would say
nothing whatever of the occurrence. Without further words, Mary had
walked away, but that same afternoon she had removed her wraps to
another locker, a significant sign that she was done with the French
girl forever.

When it came to Marjorie's ears that Mary and Mignon had quarreled, she
decided a trifle sadly that Mary's melancholy was due to the French
girl's defection. She was sure that, whatever