A black-coated biped hovering before the Christmas trees, now retreating and now advancing undecidedly, heard his name with relief. “Is that you, Mr. Ames?” asked Rosalie, rising with decision. The young man addressed doubled around the end of the grove with eager agility. “I didn’t intend to hide,” laughed the girl. Irving rose also, and when the two had gone, sank back on the seat, playing absently with the fan he still held. His thoughts were busy, and his teeth tightly closed. “What do I want, anyway?” he reflected. “Which is Betsy: a meddlesome busybody, or a guardian angel? I’ll take no chances on the angel proposition. She’s a busybody. I’ll see her to-morrow.” Irving shook his head threateningly, and a sudden nervous twist of his strong fingers broke a couple of sticks of the pretty fan. He frowned in dismay, and fitted them together in the futile manner inseparable from the occasion. “Must last her years and years,” he reflected. “Well, it’s up to me to get her another fan, that’s evident.” And with a clearing of the countenance as if this consideration presented distinct consolation, he rose and wandered out of the arbor. “I wonder where Madama is,” he reflected. She had not come into his mind since her refusal of his request drove him to Mrs. Nixon. “How am I to revive her interest in Rosalie?” he wondered as he moved down the hall. As soon as Mrs. Bruce had made her perfunctory acknowledgment to Rosalie, she slipped from Robert’s side, unnoticed by a culprit absorbed in his own misdemeanors, and with one glance after Irving and Mrs. Nixon, who were returning to the other end of the room, she moved into the hall, and up the stairs of the inn. She made no effort to curb the hot resentment that possessed her in every fibre. Her one desire was to reach the cause of her suffering, and wreak her sense of outrage upon her. It was half an hour after Captain Salter’s departure, and Betsy was smiling to herself as she wound the living-room clock. Her thoughts were with Rosalie; confident of the girl’s success, yet half-frightened by the chance of fortune which had united the Yellowstone party to witness her début. She imagined the scene in the spacious living-room of the hotel. Had the rain not fallen, she had meant to ask Hiram to take her over there, that she might look in through the windows and see the dear child standing, the cynosure of all eyes, even if she could not hear her voice. She felt certain of Mr. Derwent’s satisfaction in her. As a contraband guest at the Canyon Hotel, Rosalie had recited for him in her room, and to-night Betsy’s heart swelled in the realization that he was seeing the first fruits of his generosity. Doubts of Mrs. Bruce’s approval did sweep occasionally, like filmy clouds, across the clear happiness of her mind; but the importance of Rosalie’s good fortune was paramount, and Betsy was able to sweep them away.