Tom
will pay the duty. When he comes home this evening. He couldn't come
home from the station--and miss his train--and all that sort of
thing--just to pay the duty on a box of cigars, could he? So I
brought them home. It is perfectly plain and simple! You see if he
doesn't pay the duty as soon as he gets in the house. Tom wouldn't
want to smuggle them in, Mrs. Fenelby. You shouldn't think he would
do such a thing. I'm--I'm surprised that you should think that of
Tom."

Mrs. Fenelby looked at him doubtfully, and then glanced at Kitty's
innocent face. She shook her head. It did not seem just what Tom
would have done, but she could not deny that it might be so. She
would know all about it when he came home in the evening. She cast a
glance at the lawn, and uttered a cry. Billy was pouring oceans of
water at full pressure upon her pansy bed, and the poor flowers were
dashing madly about and straining at their roots. Some were already
lying washed out by the roots. Billy looked, and swung the nozzle
sharply around, and the scream that Kitty uttered told him that he
had hit another mark. That pink shirt-waist looked disreputable.
Water was dripping from all its laces, and from Kitty's hair, and
her cheeks glistened with pearly drops. She was drenched.

"Goodness!" she exclaimed, shaking her hanging arms and her
down-bent head, and then glancing at Billy, who stood idiotically
regarding her, she laughed. He was a statue of miserable regret, and
the limply held garden hose was pouring its stream unheeded into his
low shoes. Wet as she was, and uncomfortable, she could not refrain
from laughing, for Billy could not have looked more guilty if she
had been sugar and had completely melted before his eyes. Even Mrs.
Fenelby laughed.

"It doesn't matter a bit!" said Kitty, reassuringly. "Really, I
don't mind it at all. It was nice and cool."

She was very pretty, from Billy's point of view, as she stood with a
wisp or two of wet hair coquettishly straggling over her face. Mrs.
Fenelby would have said she looked mussy, but there is something
strangely enticing to a man in a bit of hair wandering astray over a
pretty face. Before marriage, that is. It quite finished Billy. He
forgave her all just on account of those few wet, wandering locks.

"I'm so sorry!" he said, with enormous contrition. "I'm awfully
sorry. I'm--I'm mighty sorry. Really, I'm sorry."

"Now, it doesn't matter a bit," said Kitty lightly. "Not a bit! I'll
ju