The two girls talked about the news in low, horrified tones on the way back to Dorothy's, and down they sat, prepared not only to amuse Elisabeth but to amuse her until the return of Miss Merriam, no matter how late that proved to be. It seemed an eternity but it was only half past five when she and Mrs. Smith came back. The Ethels sat before the fire in the sitting room like judges on the bench. They made their accusation promptly. Gertrude sat down as if her knees were unable to support her. Her blue eyes stared amazedly from one to the other. "Mr. Clark says I am going away? That Dr. Watkins said he thought I was going away?" Her complete wonderment proved her not guilty. "But I'm not going away! I haven't any idea of going away--unless you want me to," and she turned appealingly to Mrs. Smith. "My dear child, of course we don't want you to," and Mrs. Smith bent and kissed her. "We love you dearly and we like your work. I can't think what Mr. Clark could have meant--or Dr. Watkins--" "It was Edward Watkins who told Mr. Clark," repeated Ethel Brown. Gertrude sat stupefied. "Unless the wish were father to the thought," ended Mrs. Smith softly. "Unless he wanted it to be true?" translated Gertrude inquiringly. "Unless--Oh!" A blush burned its way from her chin to her brow and lost itself in the soft hair that swept back from her temples. "He wanted it to be true, and he said he thought it was going to happen. Well, he's altogether too sure! It's humiliating," and she threw up her chin and walked firmly out of the room, for the first time forgetting Elisabeth. "What does she mean?" Ethel Blue asked her aunt. "Why is she humiliated?" asked Ethel Brown. "What is she going to do?" was Dorothy's question. "I don't know," Mrs. Smith replied to Dorothy. "We'd better not bother her. Don't tease her with questions." The girls obeyed, but they talked the matter over a great deal among themselves and they would have asked Edward Watkins about it the first time they saw him except that their Aunt Louise guessed their plan and forestalled it by telling them that any mention of the matter would be an intrusion upon other people's affairs which would be wholly unwarranted. The first time they saw Edward was the next day, when the Rosemont Charitable Society gave a bazaar for the benefit of its treasury, depleted by the demands upon it of an uncommonly hard winter. The seats were all taken out of the high school hall and the big room became the scene of a Donnybrook Fair on St. Patrick's Day. Of course the U. S. C. had been called on to help; it had made a name for itself and outsiders looked to it for ideas and assistance. In fact, the idea of the fair was Ethel Brown's. She heard her mother talking with one of the Directors of the R. C. S. one afternoon about the unending need for money and suggested the Irish program as a possible means of making some.