er! I know we are going to be great
friends."

"I hope so," said Sidney briefly, "because I have an idea that she and
I are going to be very good friends too."

And Sidney went upstairs and put away a single white carnation very
carefully.

In the second place, Mrs. Hill was saying to her eldest son, "I liked
that Miss Seeley very much. She seemed a very sweet girl."

And, finally, Agnes Walters and Edna Hayden were discussing the matter
in great mystification in their room.

"I can't understand it at all," said Agnes slowly. "Sid Hill took her
to the prom and he must have sent her those carnations too. She could
never have afforded them herself. And did you see the fuss his people
made over her? I heard Beatrice telling her that she was coming to
call on her tomorrow, and Mrs. Hill said she must look upon
'Beechlawn' as her second home while she was at Payzant. If the Hills
are going to take her up we'll have to be nice to her."

"I suppose," said Edna conclusively, "the truth of the matter is that
Sid Hill meant to ask her anyway. I dare say he asked her long ago,
and she would know our invitation was a fraud. So the joke is on
ourselves, after all."

But, as you and I know, that, with the exception of the last sentence,
was not the truth of the matter at all.

The Penningtons' Girl

Winslow had been fishing--or pretending to--all the morning, and he
was desperately thirsty. He boarded with the Beckwiths on the
Riverside East Shore, but he was nearer Riverside West, and he knew
the Penningtons well. He had often been there for bait and milk and
had listened times out of mind to Mrs. Pennington's dismal tales of
her tribulations with hired girls. She never could get along with
them, and they left, on an average, after a fortnight's trial. She was
on the lookout for one now, he knew, and would likely be cross, but he
thought she would give him a drink.

He rowed his skiff into the shore and tied it to a fir that hung out
from the bank. A winding little footpath led up to the Pennington
farmhouse, which crested the hill about three hundred yards from the
shore. Winslow made for the kitchen door and came face to face with a
girl carrying a pail of water--Mrs. Pennington's latest thing in hired
girls, of course.

Winslow's first bewildered thought was "What a goddess!" and he
wondered, as he politely asked for a drink, where on earth Mrs.
Pennington had picked her up. She handed him a shining dipper