"Monday is better than Tuesday, so you must come to-day, and we can telephone your aunt, that she needn't wonder at your mysterious disappearance." "Thank you, really I cannot, I am busy, I must go downtown, and besides--" So Priscilla stumbled along, to Martine's great astonishment. "Oh, I thought you always enjoyed coming home with me. I am sure you have often said so; but you needn't if you don't want to." Martine's air of injured innocence sat ill upon her. She could not explain to Priscilla why she was so anxious to have her spend the afternoon with her. She could not fully explain this anxiety to herself, although the real reason was her hope that a talk with Priscilla might settle that little problem of right and wrong connected with the prize essay. If Martine was annoyed by Priscilla's refusal, poor Priscilla was deeply disturbed by the turn of affairs. Not for a moment did it occur to her that she might disregard her aunt's injunction in relation to Martine. Priscilla had been brought up so strictly that, as Martine sometimes said, she did not think it possible to disobey "the powers that be," whether teachers, parent, or guardian. In Boston Mrs. Tilworth stood in her mother's place, and in consequence whatever she said was law. In the present instance, however, obedience was a little harder than usual, because she knew that Mrs. Tilworth's severity toward her friend came from an error of judgment. Foolish though Martine had been, she was much better than Mrs. Tilworth thought her, and Priscilla knew that it lay with her to correct her aunt's impression. "Good-bye, Martine," said Priscilla, as they parted at the corner below the school. "Really and truly, I am sorry not to go home with you." "There, my dear child, someway or other I always have to believe you; but all the same you are very ridiculous and disobliging not to come with me," and although she smiled as she spoke, Martine's voice still held a little bitterness as she turned away from Priscilla and went down the hill. Through the week the two went their separate ways--at least out of school. In their classes and at recess they were still the best of friends. But neither said a word to the other about visiting her. Priscilla, conscious of her aunt's disapproval of Martine, was tongue-tied, and Martine's sense of wounded dignity lasted longer than usual. On Friday Martine did not go to the Symphony rehearsal, and this in itself was not strange, as she not only was not fond of music, but found the restraint of Mrs. Tilworth's presence rather irksome. In her absence her mother, however, usually occupied her seat, and thus the ticket was not wasted. Martine justified her own absences by telling Priscilla that it would be selfish in her to monopolize the seat when really her mother enjoyed the concert far more than she did.