"No matter what happens," said her father, "never wear a worried looking hat!" "Which being interpreted," puzzled Daphne, "means----" Like a Fancier perfectly willing to share the cut-flowers of his mind but quite distinctly opposed to parting with the roots of any of his ideas her father parried the question. "Which being interpreted," he repeated a bit stiffly, "means '_Never wear a worried looking hat_!'" Certainly there developed nothing worried looking about Daphne Bretton's Florida-going hat! Nor about her suit, either! Nor her shoes! Nor her silken stockings! Her hat was crisp, with a flare of pink in it, her suit was blue, her shoes and silkies distinctly [58] trim. From top to toe, bright hair, bright cheeks, lithe little body and all, there was nothing worried looking about Daphne Bretton except her eyes. Sweet eyes they were too, wide set, wistful, and inherently frank, though vaguely furtive now with the tragic, incongruous furtiveness of youth that having once perhaps feared overmuch that it would not be noticed is panic-stricken now lest it may be. Little girl eyes distinctly, and the eyes of a very worried little girl at that! In the joggling crowd at the railroad station two women noticed her only too quickly. The little blue hound himself sniffing close at her heels quickened to the trail no more avidly than they. "Bet you a dollar," gasped the first, "that that's the Bretton girl!" "Bretton girl?" gloated the other in an only too audible whisper. "Why, yes, of course, you know," nudged the first "That one, you know, that was expelled from college for having a boy in her room at night! Oh, an awful scandal it was! Why the Sunday papers were full of it last week!" [59] "Oh, yes, of course, I saw it," confided the second. "A whole page of pictures, wasn't it? Perfectly disgusting, I call it! So bold--so----" "Pretty, though, isn't she?" deprecated the first. "If you like that fast type," sneered the second. "Oh, and look at her now!" snickered the first. "Got an older man in tow this time! And, oh goodness, but isn't he a stunner with all that white hair and elegant figure and swell traveling bags! If there's one thing I think refined it's swell traveling bags! But, oh, isn't it awful the way rich people cut up? Wouldn't you think her folks would stop her? Wouldn't you?" From under the sheltering, shadowy brim of her hat Daphne shot an agonized glance at her father's half-averted face. But to her infinite astonishment her father's deep-set eyes were utterly serene, and even his shrewd mouth was relaxed at the moment into the faint ghost of a perfectly amiable smile. "Old-Dad--are you deaf?" she gasped with a little quick clutch at his arm. [60] "When geese are cackling," said her father. "And blind?" flared Daphne.