Hilda waked next morning after but an hour or two’s sleep. Last night she had been sure she couldn’t sleep at all. She’d lain for a long time, it seemed to her, going over and over everything she had said to Pearse, all he’d said to her, bringing back his every look and gesture. Now, as she opened her eyes on last night’s party dress lying over the chair, last night’s ornaments strewing her bureau top, the happy sense of security that had come in dreams, that had pervaded those dreamy waking thoughts, threatened to leave her. Pearse wasn’t going away to be married; he was more her friend than ever; he was more charming, finer even, than she remembered him; to be with him was more delightful—but— Oh, why hadn’t she managed better about Pearse? Why hadn’t she said to Mrs. Marchbanks last night that she’d known him a long time—that her father and mother had known him and his parents years ago? The fatal flaw in that was that she hadn’t mentioned it when she first came over to the Alamositas. And that came about because she’d deceived Uncle Hank about him. She sighed and looked about her room, wondering how late it was. There came a tap on the connecting door; she knew that sharp rattling knock; Maybelle must be up and dressed already; then she heard Mrs. Marchbanks saying: “Don’t wake her. Plenty of time when she comes down stairs. She’ll surely want to go—any girl would.” But Maybelle had already stepped inside and shut her stepmother out. Last night, when they were alone together, the girls had been very silent; no talking over the dance. This morning Maybelle stopped in the middle of the room and stared half frowningly at Hilda, sitting up in bed smiling at her, a tumble of dark hair over her shoulders. “Hilda—what’s the matter with you this morning?” “Nothing. Do I look awfully tired?” “Tired!” Maybelle turned to the bureau, and continued to study Hilda’s face as it showed in the glass there. “You don’t look as if you ever had been tired in your life—or ever would be. Riding twenty miles—racing at that—and dancing all night seems to agree with you.” “I guess it does.” Hilda slipped out of bed and into a bathrobe and began to lay out what she was going to wear. Maybelle settled herself on the bed edge. “Run along and get your bath. I’ll wait for you here. Something I want to talk to you about.” Hilda came back, rosy, refreshed, declaring: “I’d like to go to another dance to-night. I never felt so utterly rested in my life.” “All right. That’s what I want to talk about. Mother’s been afraid you’d be too used up to care to ride over and see the doings on County Day—it’s to-morrow, you know.” “I did know,” Hilda said doubtfully, for Fayte had been talking to her about County Day. So far as she could see, it offered only a chance for him to hang about her and push his usual tactics of monopolizing her. “I’m not sure I want to go, Maybelle. I don’t think we ought to break up the lessons so much.”