ny harm.
After all, he's her father when you get right down, and I reckon he
won't let anything happen to his own flesh and blood."

"No," agreed Timothy, with becoming gravity, although his blue eyes
danced merrily, "I don't suppose he would. What city is it, Miss
'Liza?"

"He don't say. It's just like him. But the envelope was post-marked
'Lewisburg,' so I reckon it's pretty safe to say that's where he is.
I'm glad it's in the State. I wouldn't want Arethusa traveling too
far."

Arethusa was irritated beyond her always slight endurance by this
little discussion of her and her affairs, carried on so much as if she
were not present. She plunged suddenly into the conversation without
any invitation.

"I'm not going just to visit," she announced, flatly, "I'm going to
Live. Father didn't say just 'visit.'"

This created all the stir she could have wished; a chorus of outcry
from Miss Eliza and Miss Letitia and Timothy. Only Miss Asenath smiled.
Arethusa pushed her chair back from the table and surveyed them all
defiantly.

"I reckon I can go live with my own father!"

"Of course not," snapped Miss Eliza; "you _live_ here!"

"Of course you do," affirmed Timothy; "it's perfectly foolish to talk
of living any place else but here, Arethusa. And even if you do go make
your father a visit, you won't stay very long. I know. You see, I've
been there and I know what it's like, and I know you, too, Arethusa; so
I know very well you won't want to stay!"

With this calm assurance and assumption of superiority on Timothy's
part, Arethusa's rage at him boiled over, openly, despite Miss Eliza's
presence.

"Nobody asked your opinion, Timothy Jarvis, that I heard! And you know
absolutely nothing whatever about what I'm going to do!"

"Oh, yes, but I do," he replied, still maddeningly superior, "I
know...."

Arethusa fairly quivered in her fury.

"You do _not_," she interrupted, in flat contradiction. "I'm going
there to _live_. And if you want to know just why, Timothy Jarvis,
it's because then I shan't ever have to lay eyes on you again!"

"_Arethusa_!" from Miss Eliza.

Whereat Arethusa, retaining some small remnants of the instinct for
self-preservation, subsided, though her eyes still blazed with honest
anger directed at Timothy. And when Miss Eliza's attention was
distracted elsewhere for a brief moment, she seized the occasion to
whisper to him; "Don't you dare stay a minute after supper, Timothy;
don't you dar