"I would be glad to go," answered the girl; "but mother won't let me." "We'll go in and ask her, if you wish," he replied. "There's no use, but we can try. Perhaps if she thinks I don't want to go, she will consent." Into the house they went, and Dic made his wants known to the head of the family. "No," snapped the good lady, "she can't go. Girls of sixteen and seventeen nowadays think they are young ladies." "They are dull, anyway," said Rita, referring to church socials. "I have heard they are particularly dull at Scott's--the Baptists are so religious. Sukey Yates said they did nothing but preach and pray and sing psalms and take up a collection at the last social Scott gave. It's just like church, and I don't want to go anyway." She had never been to a church social, but from what she had heard she believed them to be bacchanalian scenes of riotous enjoyment, and her remarks were intended to deceive. "You should not speak so disrespectfully of the church," said the Chief Justice, sternly. "The Lord will punish you for it, see if He doesn't. Since I think about it, the socials held at Scott's are true, religious, God-fearing gatherings, and you shall go as a punishment for your sacrilegious sneers. Perhaps if you listen to the Word, it may come back after many days." Margarita, Sr., often got her Biblical metaphors mixed, but that troubled her little. There was, she thought, virtue in scriptural quotations, even though entirely inapplicable to the case in point. "Come for her to-morrow evening, Dic," said Mrs. B. "She shall be ready." Then turning to Rita: "To speak of the Holy Word in that manner! You shall be punished." Dic and Rita went out to the porch. Dic laughed, but the girl saw nothing funny. "It seems to me just as if I had told a story," she said. "One may act a story as easily as tell it." "Well, you are to be punished," laughed Dic. "But you know I want to go. I have never been to a social, and it will not punish me to go." "Then you are to be punished by going with me," returned the stalwart young fisherman. She looked up to him with a flash of her eyes--those eyes were worse than a loose tongue for tattling--and said:-- "That is true." Dic, who was fairly boiling with pleasant anticipations, went to town next day and boiled over on Billy Little. "I'm going to take Rita to Scott's social this evening," he said. "Ah, indeed," responded Billy; "it's her first time out, isn't it?" "Yes." "I envy her, by George, I do, and I envy you," said Billy. He did not envy Dic; but you may remember my remarks concerning bachelor hearts and their unprotected condition in this cruel world. There may be pain of the sort Billy felt without either envy or jealousy. "Dic, I have a mind to send Rita a nice ribbon or two for to-night. What do you think about it?" asked Billy. "She would be delighted," answered Dic. "She would accept them from you, but not from me."