mothy, but there was not very much warmth in his tone.
"And I like you in anything; but I believe I like you better in what
Miss 'Titia makes you."

"In what Aunt 'Titia makes me!" she exclaimed, horrified at Timothy's
poor taste. "Of course you don't! You can't!" But she added, quickly,
for her loyal heart felt that something was not quite right about the
sound of that speech. "Aunt 'Titia's clothes look better at home, on
the Farm! They wouldn't do at all for town! But she's a Dear to make
them for me, and I love them! They're perfectly all right in the
country!"

"That's where I like you better," replied Timothy decidedly, and very
briskly and warmly this time. "On the Farm! And in the country!"

"Oh, Timothy, don't begin and gloom now! Please don't! That's a dear!"
Arethusa clasped her hands imploringly. "Please, please, don't gloom!
I'm not going to fuss with you once while you're here, not once! I
promise, honest! So there!"

This should have been very cheering news. But Timothy merely remarked
with calmness that she shouldn't have time to do much fussing, anyway,
since he was going home on the morning train.

"Why, Timothy Jarvis!"

Yes, he repeated, the early morning train was the train he fully
intended to take.

"No, you're not!"

Arethusa was very firm about it, but then so was he. And a quarrel
seemed most imminent, in spite of Arethusa's earnest promise, had they
not very fortunately arrived at the house in Lenox Avenue just in time
to prevent the disagreement from becoming disagreeable.

Ross liked Timothy immensely. He liked his bigness, and his honest
youngness, and his clean-heartedness, written all over him. Elinor
liked him too. And the boy had not been in the house five minutes
before Ross and Elinor both had read his story in his blue eyes. Those
blue eyes never once left Arethusa.

Arethusa's tongue certainly seemed swung in the middle during the rest
of this day. But then there were two whole months and over to make up.
They came within really dangerous hailing distance of an affray several
times, sad to relate, when Timothy planted himself in one position,
immovable, and she firmly entrenched herself in another. He did not
seem to be able to approve of a single thing she had to tell him about
the various and sundry occupations with which she filled her days in
Lewisburg. But a person in so supremely felicitous a mood as Arethusa
was in at the prospect of her very own Party, could not