e would hang about her all the rest
of the way. She excused herself coldly.

"Oh, please do, please come for just a wee turn," urged the other,
smiling and displaying a pair of marvellous dimples. And Elsie Marley
surprised herself by yielding. Possibly she was too indolent to hold
out; perhaps she felt something in the stranger that wouldn't take no
for an answer, and didn't care to struggle against it. Again, she may
have felt, dimly and against her will, something of the real charm of
the other. However that was, she yielded listlessly, put on her neat
sailor hat reluctantly, drew on the jacket of her severe and elegant
dark-blue suit, and followed the stranger slowly from the car.

CHAPTER II

The stranger, who was dressed in a rather graceful and perhaps rather
flamboyant adaptation of the prevailing fashion, was picturesque and
radiant to the extreme: slender, dark, vivid, with big, dark eyes in a
small pointed face, dark hair "bobbed" and curling sufficiently to turn
under about her ears and neck, a rather large mouth flanked by really
extraordinary dimples, and an expression at once gay and saucy and
sweet and appealing withal. Her voice was very sweet, her unusually
finished pronunciation and enunciation giving a curious effect to her
slangy speech. She wore her clothes jauntily, carried herself with
charming grace, and her great dimples made her frank smile irresistible.

"Do you know, I've been simply crazy all the way to come and speak to
you," she confessed as soon as they were outside. "I spotted you the
very first thing, but I was rather phased by that woman with you.
Wasn't she the--goodness gracious! I hope she wasn't any
relation--your aunt or mother?"

"Oh, no indeed, scarcely an acquaintance," returned the other,
surprised that any one should even conjecture that Mrs. Bennet might be
connected with her. Then it occurred to her that Cousin Julia might be
even worse!

"I never met her until a week ago," she went on languidly. "She
happened to be a friend of my lawyer's wife, and he wished me to come
as far as I could in her company. I suppose I oughtn't to travel the
rest of the way alone, but he didn't make any other arrangement."

"Oh, it isn't bad. I've come all the way alone and everything's been
jolly. I've made awfully good friends, though they're all either
elderly or children. So your being about my age only made me want to
know you the more. Well, now that we're a