and round in
Arethusa's brain. She reached down in the little leather pocket that
always hung at her belt and drew out a large, square envelope.

"Here, child, I said you could read it," and although her tone was as
sharp as always, it was not unkind. "That woman he married. You want to
know, I reckon. Some more about her. It's perfectly natural. He's gone
into all sorts of raptures over her, of course. He wouldn't be Ross
Worthington if he hadn't. And she is very probably just an ordinary
female woman."

Arethusa seized the outstretched envelope eagerly.

"May I...?" she asked.

She spoke to Miss Asenath, who nodded a permission to the unfinished
but evident request before either of the other aunts had a chance to
refuse it.

So Arethusa was off like the wind, unheeding of the anxious call Miss
Letitia sent after her.

Out through the back of the house this time, and on through the kitchen
where she paused only long enough to squeeze Mandy, one of her
staunchest allies and a certain sharer in all joys, to whirl her clear
around from her table where she was working, and to wave the Letter at
her excitedly and then plunge on, leaving Mandy absolutely breathless
with the suddenness of this onslaught.

The rain was falling now, slowly but steadily, in big heavy drops, and
the darkest clouds were lowering, apparently right above her head; but
the flying girl paid no attention to these evidences of the imminence
of her storm. She held the Letter pressed close against her as if to
protect it and made straight for Miss Asenath's Woods, via the orchard.

CHAPTER III

Arethusa flung herself flat on a mossy spot of ground underneath the
largest and tallest of the trees in Miss Asenath's Woods.

Like the vaulted ceiling of a huge green cathedral, the branches far
above her curved in graceful arches. And they were so thickly
interlaced and grown with leaves, that although this first slow-falling
rain of the storm could be distinctly heard in its noisy pattering on
those leaves, very little came through them, save an extra large and
splashing drop every now and then.

Having run every step of the way from the house, Arethusa was
completely out of breath: and she could only lie panting for some
moments, the Letter still clutched to her breast.

The wind had died down, and it was as hot and close out here in the
open under the trees as it had seemed in the shut-up sitting room. But
she was far from any thought