Ailsa, down on her knees again, dabbled thoughtfully in the soil,

exploring the masses of matted spider-wort for new shoots.

Camilla looked on, resignedly, her fingers playing with the

loosened masses of her glossy black hair. Each was following in

silence the idle drift of thought which led Camilla back to her

birthday party.

"Twenty!" she said still more resignedly--"four years younger than

you are, Ailsa Paige! Oh dear--and here I am, absolutely

unmarried. That is not a very maidenly thought, I suppose, is it

Ailsa?"

"You always were a romantic child," observed Ailsa, digging

vigorously in the track of a vanishing May beetle. But when she

disinterred him her heart failed her and she let him scramble away.

"There! He'll probably chew up everything," she said. "What a

sentimental goose I am!"

"The first trace of real sentiment I ever saw you display," began

Camilla reflectively, "was the night of my party."

Ailsa dug with energy. "That is absurd! And not even funny."

"You were sentimental!"

"I--well there is no use in answering you," concluded Ailsa.

"No, there isn't. I've seen women look at men, and men look back

again--the way he did!"

"Dear, please don't say such things!"

"I'm going to say 'em," insisted Camilla with malicious

satisfaction. "You've jeered at me because I'm tender-hearted

about men. Now my chance has come!"

Ailsa began patiently: "There were scarcely a dozen words

spoken----"

Camilla, delighted, shook her dark curls.

"You've said that before," she laughed. "Oh, you pretty minx!--you

and your dozen words!"

Ailsa Paige arose in wrath and stretched out a warning arm among

her leafless roses; but Camilla placed both hands on the fence top

and leaned swiftly down from the veranda steps,

"Forgive me, dear," she said penitently. "I was only trying to

torment you. Kiss me and make up. I know you too well to believe

that you could care for a man of that kind."

Ailsa's face was very serious, but she lifted herself on tiptoe and

they exchanged an amicable salute across the fence.

After a moment she said: "What did you mean by 'a man of that

kind'?"

Camilla's shrug was expressive. "There are stories about him."

Ailsa looked thoughtfully into space. "Well you won't say such

things to me again, about any man--will you, dear?"




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