It was nearly a year since her return, and outside of the bank parlor and Judge Leslie's office, she had held naught but business converse with any man. Nor with any woman. Although Rosewater society offered her nothing and she was glad to live out of town, still she liked her old school friends and had expected them to call on her. But weeks had passed and not one of them had paid her the mere civilities. She met them sometimes on Saturday afternoons, when all the world of Rosewater shopped on Main Street, and they invariably greeted her with effusion, and assured her they were "going out soon." Finally, busy and absorbed as she was, she fell a prey to curiosity. She knew that the young men had always rather feared her, as she had a forbidding reputation in the way of "bookishness"; and as most of them had either left Rosewater or married, in the four years of her absence, she had expected nothing from them. But the girls? The young married women, who had been her comrades at the High School? Did they resent her three years abroad and the sense of superiority implied? It was patent from their manner that they resented nothing. Did they disapprove of her becoming so energetic a business woman? It was true that the girls of California's country towns, except when forced by poverty to work, were the laziest mortals on earth. But nothing could exceed their good-nature and entire indifference. Isabel might have started a race-track or opened a livery-stable and they would have vaguely admired, and been thankful that themselves were as God made them. Her friend Anabel Colton was in the south with an ailing child, and Mrs. Leslie was with her, or the problem would have been quickly solved. One morning she met the beauty of Rosewater on Main Street, Miss Dolly Boutts, a girl who had been half grown when she left, but one of her own rapturous admirers. Main Street was crowded, but Miss Boutts rushed up and kissed her, protesting that she had been trying for two months to get out to see her. Isabel guided her firmly to an ice-cream table in the candy store, and while Miss Boutts, who was a superb specimen of animal beauty with a corresponding appetite, disposed of two saucers of the delectable and a plate of cakes, Isabel dived to the heart of the mystery. She began by dilating upon her pleasure in being home again, and then congratulated her handsome friend, with a touch of sarcasm, upon the overwhelming gayeties of Rosewater. Miss Boutts stared. "Gayeties?" said she. "What else? I never knew people so absorbed, although I fail to see why I should be wholly excluded. Or have the fashions changed, and was I expected to call first--" Miss Boutts, who was not particularly quick of apprehension, here threw back her head and gave a musical laugh, which was out of tune with her drawling nasal voice and abundant slang.