'a
dry eye in the house.' That's the highest praise that the Riverville
_Herald_ can give, and it gives it to her so often that it has become a
household joke at the Blythes."

When Phil slipped this letter into his pocket he had changed his mind
about buying a ticket to New York. He had decided to take a roundabout
route by way of Riverville, with the privilege of a short stop-over. He
intended that Mary should be one of the guests at the house-party, and
he knew that the only way to persuade her was to go in person and
answer each objection as it was raised. She had written jokingly of her
disappointment, but her very effort to make light of it seemed pathetic
to him, and showed him how deeply she felt it.

All the way up from Mexico his thoughts kept drifting back to her. He
wondered if he would find her greatly changed. She had passed through so
much in the time he had been away, yet he was sure that he would find
her the same sturdy, valiant little soul that had challenged his
admiration when she was a child. He wondered what effect her mother's
death had had upon her, and what had been the outcome of her association
with a woman like Mrs. Blythe, one who made addresses in public. He
hoped that Mary wouldn't imbibe any strong-minded, women's rights
notions to detract from her feminine charm. He was glad she had
mentioned so enthusiastically the "love of a gown, and the big, black
plumed hat" that Mrs. Blythe was to wear.

It would take a great deal to eradicate Mary's love of pretty clothes.
That trait of hers had always amused him. He recalled more than one
Sunday at Ware's Wigwam when she insisted on putting on her "rosebud
sash" to wear walking on the desert, when there was nothing but the
owls and the jack-rabbits to take notice. And he recalled the big
hat-box she had squeezed into the automobile that day in New York, when
he took the girls out to the Wayside Inn, and how blissfully she peeped
at the lilac-trimmed concoction within from time to time.

A hot box delayed Phil's train awhile on the first day of his journey,
and a disabled engine on another, so that he missed the St. Louis
connection, and was a day late getting into Riverville. It happened most
unfortunately for his plans and the limited time he had to spare, that
it was the very day of the "Big Opportunity," when Mrs. Blythe was to
speak in the Opera House, to a crowd which would assemble to hear
several other speakers, one of national import