about her "conquest" for he never seemed to care to come when the rest
were about, but chose such times for his calls when he and Alice could
stroll in the garden after dusk or sit and watch the sea and the stars
from the shadow of the broad veranda.

It was very romantic and Miss Webster wore a dreamy, rapt expression
nowadays that sent Nan and Ruth off into fits of laughter when they
were out of the range of her eyes and ears.

"What a pity it is he can't be here to see?" gasped Ruth.

"Oh, he sees enough, never you fear," Nan assured her. "When one casts
sheep's eyes like that they hit even in the dark! Poor thing! She is
such a goose. Last night when he told her he was going to-morrow she
grew quite tragic and--"

"O Nan! How could you listen?" cried Ruth in a shocked voice but
immediately after going into another spasm of laughter.

"She quotes Shakespeare at him," gasped Nan, convulsed with mirth, and
not a bit abashed. "You ought to hear. It's rich!"

"Well, we must see that the coast is clear to-night for I s'pose she
will be particularly touching, and Helen is getting awfully hard to
manage. It wouldn't do to interrupt them at the last minute just when
he was getting pathetic maybe. I wonder what he'll do?"

"He'll be real dignified," declared Nan, solemnly. "You wait. He'll
be eloquent even if he is 'only a boy' as she says."

So the two girls disappeared utterly after dinner, and when Mr. Newcomb
arrived he found Miss Webster quite alone, for Helen also was nowhere
to be seen.

"She hasn't been very well lately," Miss Webster explained. "She looks
terribly pale and anxious and I'm afraid she has something on her mind.
Her headaches worry me!" and then she fell back into her poor, little
artificial manner again and sighed and looked sentimental and was
altogether "idiotic" as Nan would have said, and their two low-pitched
voices could be heard murmuring away in the stillness until poor Helen,
who was really half sick with a nervous headache upstairs, could have
cried with irritation and pain.

She sat up on the bed when Ruth came into the room, and attacked her at
once.

"I can't stand it another minute. It's driving me wild!"

"Hush! It's only to-night. This is the last time. Don't make a
scene!" pleaded Ruth.

"I'll never get over it," wailed Helen. "It simply is the most
detestable thing I ever knew. In our own house too! If this weren't
the last time I--"

What she woul