Nannie soon descended the stairs, however, and the three sat down to supper. During the meal she and young Dodd became such friends that it was with an obvious effort that she excused herself, when they had risen from the table, and returned to her bedroom, leaving the young people together. “We’re going to have an all-day picnic out at Dad’s country place next Saturday,” Dodd observed, after some ordinary conversation, “and I want you to come. Your grandmother and Colonel and Mrs. Mainter and Dad and Aunt Sally are going to be the chaperones, and we’ll have a great time. I’ll come around with a single buggy and my bays and drive you out. The rest are going in surreys and on horseback. We better start early so as to----” “Thank you, Mr. Dodd,” Lucy stopped him, “but I shan’t be able to go.” “Why, have you got something on for Saturday?” he asked. “Well, I’ll have the thing put off till next week.” “No, it’s not another engagement but I can’t go because----” “Because you don’t like picnics,” he laughed. “All right. We’ll get up something at the house here in town. What shall it be?” Lucy opened her lips to speak, but hesitated. At the same instant a gust of wind blew through the room and one of the window curtains fluttered out and threatened to overturn some ornaments on a nearby table. She hastened to secure the drapery. “Let me fix it!” he offered, starting toward her. Lucy turned to face him as he reached her side. “It’s fixed, thank you,” she began, then hesitated, flushing painfully. “Mr. Dodd,” she met his eyes steadily, “I know you mean to be nice in giving me the picnic, and coming here to see me, and all that. We are glad to have you and I hope we shall always be friends, but Grandmamma is trying to throw us at each other’s heads, and I won’t have it!” Kingsley stared at her a moment. His glance fell. “I couldn’t help it,” she resumed, finally. “I had to say it. I hope we will be friends, but if you are angry I can’t help that either.” “I guess I’d better go.” Kingsley’s face was a dull brick red. Lucy stood in the same place while he took his hat from the hall tree, and she did not move until the front door had closed behind him. “Lucy! Lucy!” Nannie called almost instantly, as she leaned over the stair rail in the upper hall, “Are you and Mr. Dodd going out?” “He’s gone,” Lucy announced, coming out of the parlor and looking up into her mother’s anxious face. “Why, what in the world’s the matter?” Nannie asked agitatedly, descending the stairs as she spoke. “Nothing’s the matter, Mamma, except that I don’t intend to let you and Grandmamma dispose of me as though I were an animal.” “Did you say such an awful thing to Kingsley?” gasped Nannie, wringing her hands. “Not exactly,” replied Lucy, almost smiling in spite of herself. “I told him we were being thrown at each other and I wouldn’t permit it.”