magic.

"Hello, Mary Bell!" said Jim Carr, joining her. But she looked so
pretty in her blue cotton dress, with the yellow level of a field of
mustard-tops behind her, and beyond that the windbreak of gold-tipped
eucalyptus trees, that he went on almost confusedly, "You--you look
terribly pretty in that dress! Is that what you're going to wear?"

"This!" laughed Mary Bell. And she raised her dancing eyes, to grow a
little confused in her turn. Nature, obedient to whose law blossoms
were whitening the fruit trees, wheat pricking through the damp earth,
robins mating in the orchards, had laid the first thread of her great
bond upon these two. They smiled silently at each other.

"I'm not even sure I'm going!" said Mary Bell, ruefully.

The sudden look of concern in his face went straight to her heart. Jim
Carr really cared, then, that she couldn't go! Big, clever, kindly Jim
Carr, who was superintendent at the power-house, and a comparative
newcomer in Deaneville, was an important personage.

"Not going!" said Jim, blankly. "Oh, say--why not!"

Mary Bell explained. But Jim was encouraging.

"Why, of course your aunt will come!" he assured her sturdily. "She'll
know what it means to you. You'll go up with the Dickeys, won't you?
I'm going up early, with the Parmalees, but I'll look out for you! I've
got to hunt up my kid brother now; he's got to sleep at Montgomery's
to-night. I don't want him alone at the hotel, if Johnnie isn't there.
If you happen to see him, will you tell him?"

"All right," said Mary Bell. And her spirits were sufficiently braced
by his encouragement to enable her to call cheerfully after him, "See
you later, Jim!"

"See you later!" he shouted back, and Mary Bell went back to the
kitchen with a lightened heart. Aunt Mat wouldn't--COULDN'T--fail her!

She carried a carefully prepared tray in to her mother at five o'clock,
and sat beside her while the invalid slowly finished her milk-toast and
tea, and the cookies and jelly Mary Bell was famous for. The girl
chatted cheerfully.

"You don't feel very badly about the dance, do you, deary?" said Mrs.
Barber, as the gentle young hands settled her comfortably for the night.

"Not a speck!" answered Mary Bell, bravely, as she kissed her.

"Bernie and Johnnie going--married women!" said the old lady, sleepily.
"I never heard such nonsense! Don't you go out of call, will you, dear?"

Mary Bell was eating her own supper, ten minutes later, when th