"But we don't," cried Angela. "It is oppressively dull at Rocky Beach. Our cottage is a quarter of a mile from any other, and over a mile from the hotel. Sometimes for days we have no company at all. But the air agrees with mamma, and so we go there every summer. Now do promise that you'll come. I simply can't endure it there without--Oh, do look, Ida! What a funny old woman! Did you ever see such a ridiculous parasol? Why, it must surely have been handed down from the ark!" Ida's heart seemed to stop beating. She looked up, turning pale and then red, for coming along the road from the village, wearing the black embroidered silk cape, the old bonnet trimmed with faded purple ribbon, and holding over her head the ancient green parasol, was Aunt Patty. She was literally coated with dust, her face was flushed with the heat of the sun, and in her arms she carried a large pasteboard box. "Isn't she the most absurd object you ever saw?" Angela bit her lip to keep from laughing. "I wonder who she is. Did you ever see her before, Ida?" "Yes; she lives near here," answered Ida, adjusting her veil with both hands, that she might thus screen her flushed face from her friend's view. At this moment Aunt Patty stepped to one side of the road to avoid the carriage. She looked up, and a sudden smile illumined her face. But Ida looked straight ahead, without making the faintest sign of recognition, though her heart beat so loudly she felt sure Angela must hear it. Aunt Patty stood still a moment, looking after the carriage, a stunned expression on her face. Then she walked on, clasping tightly the big box. "She looked like a good-natured old soul," remarked Angela. "And how she stared at us, Ida! She probably doesn't see city people very often. I would like to have her costume for a masquerade." Ida smiled faintly, but said nothing in reply. She felt that it would not be safe to trust her voice just then. And, oh! _what_ would Aunt Patty say to her when they met again? How would she bear the look of reproach in those kind eyes? "I wish I had even half of Cynthia's moral courage," she thought. "I was a coward to pass Aunt Patty that way. But there is a taint in my blood, I do believe." But she did not yet realize that it was the taint of selfishness, vanity, and love of luxury, from which grave faults all the unkind and ugly acts of the past three weeks had sprung. * * * * * Angela Leverton insisted that Ida should accompany her to Mrs. Lennox's to luncheon, saying that Mrs. Lennox had told her to extend the invitation; and thus it happened that it was late in the afternoon when Ida returned home. All day she had thought of little else save that unfortunate meeting on the road with Aunt Patty, and she was prepared for coldness and perhaps reproaches--which she felt she richly deserved.