at being invited to the big house in town where Tilly's relatives
lived; but she felt embarrassed at the prospect, and she had not the
least idea what a boy who was "gone" on you would expect you to be or
to do. Bob was a beautiful youth of seventeen, tall, and dark, and
slender, with milk-white teeth and Spanish eyes; and Laura's mouth
dried up when she thought of perhaps having to be sprightly or
coquettish with him.

On the eventful morning Tilly came to her room while she was dressing,
and eyed her critically.

"Oh, I say, don't put on that brown hat ... for mercy's sake! Bob can't
stand brown."

But the brown was Laura's best, and she demurred.

"Oh well, if you don't care to look nice, you know ..."

Of course she did; she was burning to. She even accepted the loan of a
sash from her friend, because "Bob loves blue"; and went out feeling
odd and unlike herself, in her everyday hat and borrowed plumes.

The Aunt, a pleasant, youthful-looking lady, called for them in a
white-hooded wagonette, and set them down at the house with a playful
warning.

"Now don't get up to any mischief, you two!"

"No fear!" was Tilly's genial response, as Aunt and cab drove off.

They were going to "do the block", Tilly explained, and would meet Bob
there; but they must first make sure that the drive had not disarranged
their hair or the position of their hats; and she led the way to her
aunt's bedroom.

Laura, though she had her share of natural vanity, was too impatient to
do more than cast a perfunctory glance at her reflected self. At this
period of her life when a drive in a hired cab was enough of a novelty
to give her pleasure, a day such as the one that lay before her filled
her with unbounded anticipation.

She fidgeted from one leg to another while she waited. For Tilly was in
no hurry to be gone: she prinked and finicked, making lavish use, after
the little swing-glass at school, of the big mirror with its movable
wings; she examined her teeth, pulled down her under-lids, combed her
eyebrows, twisted her neck this way and that, in an endeavour to view
her person from every angle; she took liberties with perfumes and
brushes: was, in short, blind and deaf to all but the perfecting of
herself--this rather mannish little self, which, despite a most womanly
plumpness, affected a boyish bonhomie, and emphasised the role by
wearing a stiff white collar and cuffs.

Laura was glad when she at last decided that she wou