rked Ross.

"Of course I want Timothy to come," replied Arethusa, with decision.
"More than anyone else except you and Mother."

"More than Mr. Bennet even?" asked her father, wickedly.

No reply of any kind was made to this sally.

But why couldn't Timothy come? Why did he want to be so horrid for? And
she expressed herself with many more ejaculations of a like nature,
until finally Ross suggested that it might be a wise plan to send
Timothy a telegram of urgency.

Arethusa seized with pleasure on this idea.

When she learned that he would receive it this very morning, if it was
started immediately, she left the breakfast-table to get her hat and
coat, telling George to notify Clay that she wanted the machine right
away. She insisted on personal attention to this important affair,
refusing to trust the telephone, although Elinor assured her it would
go just as surely. Her own handwriting, said Arethusa, would have far
more effect on Timothy than the handwriting of any stranger. She knew
very little about telegrams.

So Ross gave her all the details of the sending of one, and told her
where it might be done, and Arethusa departed gaily with Clay, who had
been called from his breakfast to serve her. She explained to him on
the ride down-town how very important it all was, and just how
necessary that Timothy receive this message with despatch, so that
Clay, being a sensible person, could not help but feel it more vital
than his breakfast.

The telegraph operator at the Patterson Hotel where Ross had told her
to go, was an obliging youth at all times, and he felt still more
obliging when Arethusa's vivid face appeared before him and her eager
voice announced that she wanted to send a telegram; and was this the
right place?

It was. He informed her further that she could send ten words for fifty
cents.

Ten words was a great many; she could say almost twice as much as she
wanted to in ten words.

Her first attempt went something on this order....

"Dear Timothy--I will never speak to you again as long as I live
if you don't come to my party. You just must come.

"ARETHUSA."

Arethusa read it in triumph. It expressed just what she wanted to
express to Timothy. Then she counted the words she had written, and her
facial expression changed radically. She leaned over the counter toward
the operator.

"Does it have to be ten words?"

"If it's a telegram, Miss, unless you want to pay the charges f