e all right and
just as it was before--"

But he stubbornly would not agree, and they quarreled, as so often, half
in play, half in real exasperation, each calling the other selfish.

But at her door, when he took her hands to thank her for the day she had
given him, he dropped quite naturally, "Until to-morrow, then," and she
entered her great white hall with a happy, shining face.

* * * * *

In the half-light of the solitary hall-lamp the white-and-gold door
between the curving halves of the stairway stood open on to the
blackness of the unlighted ball-room. At the threshold appeared Estelle,
and stood with folded arms until the servant who answered the bell had
been heard retreating down the back stairs. She came forward with a
tired, troubled, pallid, and severe face.

"Well, I'm glad you've got back!" she said, as much as to say that she
had given up looking for her. And as Aurora unexpectedly cast
mischievous, muscular arms around her and tried to squeeze the breath
out of her, she gasped amid spasms of resistance: "Stop! Don't try to
pacify me! I'm in no mood for fooling! I'm as cross with you as I can
be!"

"You little slate-pencil! You little lemon-drop, you!" said Aurora,
squeezing harder, then suddenly letting go.

"I'm in no mood to be funny, you--you county-fair prize punkin! I've
been worried half to death. Where've you been so long, 'way into the
night, long past eleven o'clock?"

"Didn't you find my note on the pin-cushion? That informed you where
I've been."

"I thought you must have met with an accident, to make you so terribly
late, or else made up your mind to go off with that young man for good
and all. Tell you the truth, I didn't quite know which I should prefer,
which would be better for you in the end."

"Do you mean to tell me you've been sitting here all day stewing and
fretting about that? Didn't you ever in your life go buggy-riding with a
feller, and did it always ends with the grand plunge? You know it
didn't. You know you could ride from Provincetown to Boston, with the
moon shining, too, and not even exchange a chaste salute."

"Nell, there's one thing I know, and it's that my scolding and warning
and beseeching will do exactly as much good as an old cow mooing with
her neck stretched over a stone wall. You know what I think. I've had
plenty of time for reflection, walking up and down the floor in there in
the dark; and long befor