"Well, you know, I really can't say; but perhaps it would be on the safe side to have three spoons in case any emergency might arise, like a custard, or jelly and whipped cream, or something else which Betty likes to make as a surprise. Yes, on the whole, I think that three would be better than two." When Virginia had placed the spoons, and Maxwell had returned to assist her, she hesitated a moment and looked at him with tears in her eyes and began: "Mr. Maxwell, there is something I must say to you, an acknowledgment and an apology I must make. I have been so horribly----" "Now see here, Miss Virginia," the rector replied, "you just forget it. We are awfully glad to have you here, and we are going to have a right jolly supper together. Betty's muffins are simply fine, and her creamed chicken is a dream. Besides, I want to consult you concerning the new wardrobe I am going to have built in the vestry. You see there is the question of the drawers, and the shelves, and----" "Never mind the drawers and the shelves," Mrs. Betty remarked as she entered with the creamed chicken and the muffins. "You just sit down before these things get cold, and you can talk business afterwards." To her utter astonishment Virginia soon found herself eating heartily, utterly at her ease in the cordial, friendly atmosphere of tent-life, and when Maxwell took her home later in the evening, she hadn't apologized or wallowed in an agony of self-reproach. She had only demanded the recipe for the muffins, and had declared that she was coming again very soon if Mrs. Betty would only let her. And last but not least--the rector's polite attention in acting as her escort home failed to work upon her dramatic temperament with any more startling effect than to produce a feeling that he was a very good friend. In fact, she wondered, as she conned over the events of the evening, whether she had realized before, all that the word _Friendship_ signified. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXII HEPSEY'S DIPLOMACY "I don't rightly know what's got into Virginia Bascom," remarked Jonathan, as he sat on Hepsey's side porch one evening, making polite conversation as his new habit was. "She's buzzin' round Mrs. Betty like a bee round a flower--thicker'n thieves they be, by gum." "Yes," cogitated Hepsey, half to herself, and half in response, "the lamb's lyin' down all right, and it's about time we'd got the lion curled up by her and purrin' like a cat. But I don't see the signs of it, and I'll have to take my knittin' to-morrow and sit right down in his den and visit with him a little. If he won't purr, I've got what'll make him roar, good and proper, or I've missed my guess." "Now Hepsey, you go easy with my church-partner, the Senior Warden. When his wife lived, he was a decent sort of a feller, was Sylvester Bascom; and I reckon she got him comin' her way more with molasses than with vinegar."