a teacher!--all the
school agreed to that. Even Tilly ceased to call her "Hartless."

"Maybe she came in a jolly box, after all," Harold said one day to
Genevieve; but Genevieve tossed her head.

"Pooh! She wasn't in any box at all, Harold. She's--_folks_!" And Harold
saw that, in spite of the lightness of her words, there were almost
tears in Genevieve's eyes.

Presidential duties, too, were easier for Genevieve now. They proved to
be, in fact, very far from arduous; and, as Tilly declared, they were,
indeed, "dreadfully honorable."

As correspondent for the school magazine Genevieve did not feel herself
to be a success. She wrote few items, and sent in even fewer.

Those she did write represented hours of labor, however; for she felt
that the weight of nations lay on every word, and she wrote and rewrote
the poor little sentences until every vestige of naturalness and of
spontaneity were taken out of them. Such information as she could gather
seemed always, in her eyes, either too frivolous to be worth notice, or
too serious to be of interest. And ever before her frightened eyes
loomed the bugbear of PRINT.

* * * * *

It was during the short vacation of three days at Thanksgiving time that
Nancy, the second girl at the Kennedys', came to the parlor door one
afternoon and interrupted Genevieve's practising.

"Miss Genevieve, I do be hatin' ter tell ye," she began indignantly,
"but there's a man at the side door on horseback what is insistin' on
seein' of ye; and Mis' Kennedy and Miss Jane ain't home from town yet."

"Why, Nancy, who is the man?"

"I ain't sayin' that I know, Miss, but I do say that he is powerful
rough-lookin' to come to the likes o' this house a-claimin' he's Mis'
Granger's cousin, as he does."

"Reddy! Why, of course I'll see Reddy," cried Genevieve, springing to
her feet.

A minute later, to Nancy's vast displeasure, Genevieve was ushering into
the sitting room a sandy-haired man in full cowboy costume from
broad-brimmed hat and flannel shirt to chaparejos and high-heeled boots.

Reddy evidently saw the surprise in Genevieve's face.

"Yes, I know," he smiled sheepishly, as Nancy left the room with slow
reluctance, "I reckon you're surprised to see me in this rig, and I'll
own I hain't wore 'em much since I came; but to-day, to come to see you,
I just had to. You see, Miss Genevieve, it's what this 'ere rig stands
for that I want to see you about, anyh