“Oh, for shame, Emmie! I would not have believed this of you!” he said, sharply. “But I can see through it, and so can Thea, no doubt. It’s not for Tom and me you’re taking up so angrily, it’s because you’re jealous over Charley McVey! You think maybe she’ll cut you out with him to-night.” “I don’t--I--” Emmie began to splutter furiously, but a slight tinkle at the door-bell made her start, then rush wildly upstairs. She knew that Charley had come, according to his promise, to accompany her to the dance. Frank opened the door, holding a fold of Thea’s dress so that she should not follow Emmie, lest the quarrel be renewed. “Come in, Charley; walk into the parlor; Emmie’ll be down in a minute,” he said; and as the young man disappeared he whispered, hurriedly: “Go and bathe your face, Thea, and come along with me to the dance. There’s no one else to go with you now. Emmie,” laughing a little, “would tear your eyes out before she’d let you go with her and Charley.” The bright face dimpled into a faint smile. “I don’t want to. You needn’t tell her that he asked me first; but he did,” she whispered, roguishly; then turning to the stairway, “I’m going alone. It’s moonlight, and I’m not the least afraid.” “You sha’n’t!” “I will!” “I’ll walk behind you!” “You won’t!” “Wait and see, that’s all,” said Frank Hinton, resolutely; and this, after all, was the manner of their going. After the first couple had got a square ahead, Thea darted out alone, and after walking a few rods with her head high, glanced furtively behind her; Frank was coming out of the gate. Thea began to run. Then Frank ran a little, too. She slackened her pace for fear of overtaking Emmie, and he slackened his too. At no time did he approach her, but he kept her all the time within sight, and when they reached the illuminated building where the party was to come off, he chose to enter by her side. Afterward he left her severely alone, as he saw that she desired him to do. Tom was already there, looking “killing,” so some of the girls said, in his elegant evening attire, with a tuberose in his button-hole. He was a consummate little dandy, and a favorite with most of the girls, who spent many a dollar that might have been saved, for the sake of leaning over the counter of Brocade & Bromley and chatting with the agreeable head clerk. Tom frowned when beautiful Thea came in looking so charming in her white mull and blue sash, with a string of white wax beads around her bare, white neck, her exquisitely molded arms guiltless of all adornment, save the narrow lace that edged the short sleeves. He devoted himself assiduously to the other girls, and did not speak to Thea the whole evening, a spiteful procedure which was copied by his sister, so that by and by it began to be whispered among the guests that “all the Hintons seemed to be mad with Thea West.”