The first he saw of the new gowns was on a certain bright Sunday afternoon in spring. Rita's heart had been divided between two desires: she longed to tell Dic in her letters of her beautiful new gowns, but she also wished to surprise him. By a masterful effort she took the latter course, and coming downstairs after dinner upon the Sunday mentioned she burst suddenly upon Dic in all her splendor. Her delight was so intense that she could not close her lips for smiling, and Dic was fairly stunned by her grandeur and beauty. She turned this way and that, directing him to observe the beautiful tints and the fashionable cut of her garments, and asked him if the bonnet with its enormous "poke," filled with monster roses, was not a thing of beauty and a joy so long as it should last. Dic agreed with her, and told her with truth that he had never seen a fashion so sweet and winsome. Then he received his reward, after being cautioned not to disturb the bonnet, and they started out for a walk in the sunshine. Dic's garments were good enough,--he had bought them in New York,--but Rita's outfit made his clothes look poor and rusty. Ever since her residence in Indianapolis he had felt the girl slipping away from him, and this new departure in the matter of dress seemed to be a further departure in the matter of Rita. In that conclusion he was wrong. The girl had been growing nearer to him day by day. Her heart belonged to him more entirely than it had even on the banks of Blue, and she longed for the sycamore divan and the royal canopy of elm. Still, she loved her pretty gowns. "I am almost afraid of you," said Dic, when he had closed the gate and was taking his place beside her for the walk. "Why?" asked Rita, delightedly. Her heart was full of the spring and Dic; what more could she desire? "Your gown, your bonnet, your dainty shoes, your gloves, your beauty, all frighten me," said Dic. "I can't believe they belong to me. I can't realize they are mine." "But they are," she said, flashing up to him a laughing glance from her eyes. "My new gown should not frighten you." "But it does," he returned, "and you, too." "I am glad if I frighten you," she answered, while lacing her gloves. "I have been afraid of you long enough. It is your turn now." "You have been afraid of me?" asked Dic in surprise. "Yes," she returned quite seriously. "I have always been slightly afraid of you, and I hope I always shall be. The night of Scott's social I was simply frightened to death, and before that night for a long, long time I was in constant fear of you. I was afraid you would speak of--you know--and I was afraid you would not. I did not know what terrible catastrophe would happen if you did speak, and I did not know what would happen to me if you did not. So you see I have always been afraid of you," she said laughingly. "Why, Rita, I would not harm a hair of your head."