ut there was not quite enough room for Arethusa,
although she had crowded into his heart enough for him to give a great
deal of thought to her.

"She's a dear," he said aloud, "a perfect dear! And I'm just as sorry
as the deuce! But any other girl...."

And he poked his slender cane so deep in between the bricks of the
old-fashioned sidewalk of this conservative neighborhood that it was
wrenched out of his hand and stood there quivering, and in his
pre-occupation with the idea of Arethusa he had gone on without it
before he realized.

But then ... Arethusa was not any other girl, and she had had an Aunt
Eliza.

* * * * *

"Open the flower box," suggested Ross, "and let's see who they're
from."

It was a truly marvelous box of blue violets then disclosed to
Arethusa's enraptured gaze. She almost forgot her unhappiness in sheer
joy of the wonder of their beauty and fragrance. They were like waxen
things in the absolute perfection of their tiny petals; and there
seemed to be hundreds of them, each as perfect as a violet ever was,
smiling at her with friendly blue faces.

No clue to the sender could be found at first, for no card was visible.
She and Ross hunted all through the box, and finally, way down in one
corner under the paper, she discovered a damp white scrap.

"_Mr. Gridley Warfield Bennet_," it read, in irreproachably correct
Old English Script.

Into the fire immediately went flowers and box and card, and Arethusa
flopped herself back into her chair and buried her head deep to weep
such scalding tears as Niobe, synonym for those who really weep, could
not have scorned to be seen weeping. Mingled with these tears was more
than a trifle of regret that violets so supremely beautiful must be
absolutely destroyed because the gift of such a Man!

Arethusa remained determined to go home, and as she really seemed to
want to see Miss Asenath so much, Elinor made no attempt to dissuade
her of her purpose beyond reminding her of the parties she was sure to
miss by rushing off so suddenly. There were several during this very
week that Arethusa had been looking forward to. But Parties had no real
attraction for Arethusa now; their prospect failed to move her in the
least. She only desired to get away as quickly as possible from all the
scenes in any way connected with the late Wonderful Mr. Bennet; and to
avoid encounters with any of those friends of hers who might be at