mbers of the other sex; the
man on the train, and now ... Mr. Bennet! The man of the train appeared
before Arethusa at the moment. She had thought him such a nice man,
until superior wisdom had informed her differently. Yet that affair had
ended comparatively smoothly, thanks to Mrs. Cherry. There was no
punishment Miss Eliza could fairly inflict for that, beyond scolding a
little. But this! What would Miss Eliza ever do if she found this out?
And Arethusa had thought Mr. Bennet a Nice man also. Nay, more than
merely nice; he had seemed Perfect. It was quite plain to Arethusa that
she knew nothing whatever about men. The best thing for her to do
hereafter would be walk in directions where they were not to be found.

Arethusa decided, going back to the very beginning for about the
hundredth time, and reviewing this Affair in this new light of Miss
Eliza's regard of it, that her lips had best be locked so closely
together in regard to her Fall from Grace that Inquisitional Torture
would not be strong enough to force it from her.

No, whatever happened hereafter under her eagle eye that so little
escaped, to cause the pouring forth of the vials of her wrath upon
Arethusa's head, Miss Eliza must never, never know of the Bennet
Escapade. And further considering It, from the other angle of her deep
humiliation of having misunderstood, she also decided that no human
being should ever learn, from her own lips, of the Great Shame that had
befallen the daughter of the House of Worthington this Fatal Evening of
the January Cotillion.

The first wan light of dawn struggling through her half drawn blinds
found Arethusa thus, still wakeful, and still miserably thoughtful; but
a little while after she had heard the first milkman's cart rattle past
in the street, she fell into a troubled slumber of vague, unpleasant
dreams that made her toss and mutter in her sleep. They were Dreams of
Miss Eliza's fury in a personified form, and of Mr. Bennet,
cloven-hoofed, with horns upon his handsome head and grinning as
diabolically as any fiend (that half-sad, half-sweet smile of his she
had so loved distorted thus!) both of which phantoms pursued her
wheresoever she fled in her dreaming to escape them, even to the
uttermost parts of the earth; sometimes they were together in pursuit,
and sometimes they pursued singly. But they gave her no chance to get
away from either of them.

She slept straight on through the breakfast hour, for they rare