er over her garden hedge, "Peter, it's a terrible thing to
be young!"

"Is it?" he laughed. "Why?"

"So many things have to happen to you!" And out of the security of her
placid years Mrs. Caldwell spoke with an earnest pity.

Peter laughed again. "Well, I'm young--at least, I suppose I would be
so considered. And _nothing_ ever happens to me!"

Mrs. Caldwell surveyed him with mischievous eyes. "No, Peter," she
contradicted, "you're not young--yet. You're not even alive yet.
You're too lazy to really live! But you'll have to come to it some
day. We all have to be born finally."

He chuckled at her comprehension of him. Then a disturbed look
fluttered across his face: "Do you actually mean that there's no
escape?"

"None! It's better to yield gracefully--and have it over. And if you
don't hurry a bit, Sheila will be through her growing pains while yours
are still before you!"

"Little Sheila? The master's star pupil?"

"Yes," she insisted, "little Sheila. You'll be taking her to parties
in a long frock before you know it. She graduates from the Seminary
next year."

But Peter was nearer to meeting Sheila in a long frock than either he
or Mrs. Caldwell dreamed. For at that moment Sheila was planning to
wear one before she was a week older.

She and Charlotte Davis were in the latter's dainty room, and spread on
the bed before them was Charlotte's new party frock. Charlotte's
father was the wealthiest man in Shadyville, and both she and her frock
did his wealth justice. She was now at home, for the Easter vacation,
from a fashionable boarding-school in Baltimore, the Shadyville
Seminary not satisfying Mr. Davis's requirements for his youngest and
favorite daughter. Her absence from the little town during the greater
part of the past two years had enabled her to erase its traces. She
had become a typical city-bred girl and she appeared pert, smartly
dressed and, for her sixteen years, amazingly mature. She had always
been prettier than Sheila, though no one had ever realized it and
probably no one ever would. For her prettiness was so informed with
sharp intelligence that her face had a challenging and almost
aggressive quality. Boys had never admired her, and men were not
likely to do so either, so lacking was she in the softer and more
appealing charms of her sex. Even at sixteen her bright blue eyes were
a trifle hard, not because of what they had seen--for she was, in
experience, sti