“And remember what I tell you,” Mrs. Mar wound up, “you’ll have to treat that gold pencil as you treat Mrs. Harrington Trennor, with reverence and awe. If you don’t you’ll be sorry. If you lean on it, it will collapse. If you do anything but admire it, it will teach you better.” Bella opened her lips—Mrs. Mar stopped her with, “Unless you come to my way of thinking, you’ll use that pencil in fear and trembling till the merciful grave offers you a refuge from your slavery. As I told Harry”—she buttoned the last button on her new gloves (why hadn’t Bella brought her anything as sensible as gloves!) and she drew down her cuff with a business-like air—“the Lord has delivered me from many snares; gold pencils among the rest!” And she marched off toward the gate. “Oh, mother,” said Hildegarde, at her side, “how could you! That dear little Bella brought the beautiful gold pencil for you all the way from Europe.” “Do you suppose I didn’t guess that? Good-by!” She looked back and nodded to Bella. “I’ve got to go to the missionary meeting now, but I’ll see you at supper.” “Oh, and you’ll tell me the rest then?” asked the wicked Bella, with an innocent look. “The rest!” Mrs. Mar glanced sharply over her shoulder as she laid her hand on the latch of the gate. “There is no rest for anybody who depends on a contrivance like that. Whenever I see a person with a gold pencil, I know it won’t be long before she’s asking me to lend her my wooden stump. As a rule she likes my wooden stump so well she walks off with it.” As Mrs. Mar vanished round the corner, Bella gave way to suppressed chuckles. Impossible to think she had a care in the world greater than a rejected gold pencil. “Yes, Hildegarde. I’m coming directly; only Trenn hasn’t given me a spray of lemon verbena yet, to console me for the scandalous way his mother treats me. Don’t you remember you _always_ give me lemon verbena when we’re in the garden?” She showed no impatience when Trenn prolonged the time-honored process—not a bit of it, went on laughing and chattering there in the sunshine and telling how they thought in England that the American girl was only keeping up the transatlantic reputation for “telling tall stories,” when Bella had said that verbena at home was a tree, and grew to the second-story window. Then having undone in half an hour any good of peace regained by the “Mar boys” through her absence and engagement, Miss Bella found her way up-stairs.