it. And you say that you will let
me go along with you?"

"Yes, but it was Sally's idea; not mine," Tilly urged. "Don't think I go
about inviting boys to take me places. You see, you are stopping at our
house, and that is why Sally mentioned it to me, but the fact that you
pay us board doesn't give me the right to pull you into things you don't
care for. You must be your own judge. No doubt you are frightfully tired
at night, and if you have writing and figuring to do after work hours,
why, it would be wrong of you to bother with a crowd of silly country
girls that you never saw before."

"Me tired? Oh no! Leave that out of the question," he warmly thrust in.
"I've set up with the boys when they were sick all night long, and
worked the next day without feeling it. What ails you? Why don't you
think I'd like to go with you? Well, I would-- I do want to go."

"Well then, we'll go," Tilly said. "I know you will like the
girls--Sally, especially, for she is crazy, simply crazy about you. Huh!
and you don't know it? Why, she goes to town nearly every day just to
pass the new court-house. Shucks! she knows every layer of brick that
goes in it, and every man by name that works under you."

"I think I remember the girl you mean." John was not absorbing the
compliment. "She is a tall, dark girl, as straight as an Indian squaw.
She stopped one day and asked me some questions about the rooms on the
lower floor. Sam come and showed her around-- I was too busy. Sam's on
the ladies' entertainment committee-- I am not."

"She told me she had never met you." Tilly leaned toward him as she
spoke. She clasped her hands over her knee. She was staring steadily,
her eyes flashing. "Oh, my! what won't some girls do to get in with a
new man? Huh! She has failed to get at you in every other way and is now
making a cat's-paw of me."

"I declare I don't know what you mean," John asserted, "but if you are
in earnest--about the party, I mean--why, you can count me in. I've
never been a party man--I wouldn't know what to do or say--but if you
will go with me, I'll be ready long before you are, I'll bet you. I'll
hire a horse and buggy at the livery-stable, and--"

"Oh no, I seldom ride," Tilly protested. "It is only about a mile and we
can walk that far in pretty weather like this. They all live close about
except Joel Eperson. He always drives in and brings his sister, Martha
Jane."

"Oh, so _he's_ going--_that feller_ is going!" John ex