. "It was
three years ago."

"And you haven't seen him since? He is a great friend of Sam's. And
Sam's people have a summer home at the Cape. Perhaps you'll meet him
there again."

"Perhaps."

"Goodness! One would think you didn't want to."

"Why, I don't know that I do, particularly. Why should I?"

"Why should you! Mary Lathrop, I do think you are the queerest girl. You
don't talk like a girl at all. Sometimes I think you are as old as--as
Prissy." "Prissy" was the disrespectful nickname by which the young
ladies referred, behind her back, to Miss Priscilla Cabot.

Mary laughed. "Not quite, I hope," she said. "But I don't see why I
should be so very anxious to meet Crawford Smith. And I'm sure he isn't
anxious to meet me. If all the other girls are crazy about him, that
ought to be enough, I should think."

This astonishing profession of indifference to the fascination of the
football hero, indifference which Miss Barbara declared to be only
make-believe, was made on a Saturday. The next day, as Mrs. Wyeth
and Mary were on their way home from church, the former made an
announcement.

"We are to have a guest, perhaps guests, at dinner this noon," she
said. Sunday dinner at Mrs. Wyeth's was served, according to New England
custom, at one o'clock.

"Samuel, Mr. John Keith's son, is to dine with us," continued Mrs.
Wyeth. "He may bring a college friend with him. You have met Samuel,
haven't you, Mary?"

Mary said that she had. She was a trifle embarrassed at the prospect of
meeting Sam Keith in her new surroundings. At home, in South Harniss,
they had met many times, but always at the store. He was pleasant
and jolly and she liked him well enough, although she had refused his
invitations to go on sailing parties and the like. She knew perfectly
well that his mother and sister would not have approved of these
invitations, for in the feminine Keith mind there was a great gulf fixed
between the summer resident and the native. The latter was to be helped
and improved but not encouraged socially beyond a certain point. Mary
sought neither help nor improvement of that kind. Sam, it is true, had
never condescended or patronized, but he had never called at her home
nor had she been asked to visit his.

And now she was to meet him in a house where she was considered one of
the family. His father had been influential in bringing her there. Did
Sam know this and, if he did, what influence would the knowledge have
upo