ever
looked toward Tilly that afternoon; and when school was dismissed she
hurried cheerfully away with only a smiling nod toward Cordelia and
Alma, whom she passed in the corridor.

At home Genevieve went immediately to her practising--somewhat to Mrs.
Kennedy's surprise. She practised, too, quite fifteen minutes over her
hour--still more to Mrs. Kennedy's surprise. There was, also, a certain
unsympathetic hardness in the chords and runs that puzzled the lady not
a little; but in the face of their obvious accuracy, and of Genevieve's
apparent faithfulness, Mrs. Kennedy did not like to find fault.

Just how long Genevieve would have practised is doubtful, perhaps, had
there not sounded an insistently repeated whistle of the Hexagon Club
song from the garden. The girl went to the open window then.

"Did you whistle, Harold?" she asked, not too graciously.

"Did I whistle?" retorted the boy, testily. "Oh, no, I never whistled
_once_--but I did four times! See here, I thought your practice-hour was
an _hour_."

"It is."

"Well, you've been working fifteen minutes over-time already."

"Have I?"

"Yes, you have; and your constitution positively needs a walk. Come,
it's your plain duty to your health. Will you go?"

Genevieve dimpled into a laugh.

"All right," she cried more naturally. "Then I'll come. I'll be out in a
jiffy."

"Let's go up through the pasture to the woods," proposed Harold, when
Genevieve appeared, swinging her hat.

"All right," nodded Genevieve, somewhat listlessly. "Anywhere."

In the woods, some time later, Genevieve and Harold dropped themselves
down to rest. It was then that Harold cleared his throat a little
nervously.

"You have a new boy in school, I hear," he said.

Genevieve turned quickly. For a moment she looked almost angry. Then,
unexpectedly, she laughed.

"You've been talking with Tilly, I perceive," she remarked.

"Oh, no; Tilly has only been talking with me," retorted Harold, laughing
in his turn--though a little constrainedly.

Genevieve grew suddenly sober.

"I don't care; I'm glad I did it," she declared. "You know _what_ Tilly
can be when she wants to be--and she evidently wanted to be, this
morning. Just because a boy is new and has got freckles and a queer
name, is no reason why he should be made fun of like that."

"Of course not!" Then, still a little constrainedly, Harold asked: "How
do you like him? I saw you talking with him afterward."

Genevieve fr