She was deftly thrusting the pins through her hat before the oval mirror which had been one of her acquisitions. As she drew on the gloves she turned her supple body to make sure of the satisfactory hang of her skirt. Her good spirits had returned, and she hummed softly as Phil surveyed her. She seemed less indifferent to-day to Phil's admiration. Phil's spirits rose slowly; it was difficult to mourn in this radiant presence. Lois had exercised all her arts in preparing for this mysterious call. She looked astonishingly well!--and amazingly young! Dressing had always been to Phil one of the nuisances and troubles of life. Her aunts had so annoyed her by their fussiness, and their efforts at self-embellishment had so disgusted her that it had been a revelation to find her mother making herself into charming pictures with so few strokes and so blithe an indifference to results. Phil watched Lois to the gate, delighting in her easy, graceful step; following the pink dot of the parasol as it was lost and found again through the greenery. Lois sauntered toward the college and Phil turned into the house, speculating as to her destination. Her mother's general spontaneousness and inadvertence had led Phil to the belief that Lois withheld nothing; it was inconsonant with her understanding of Lois that there should be any recesses where the sun did not strike upon glittering mirrors in the long corridors down which, in Phil's adoration, her mother was forever loitering. Students encountered near the campus turned their heads for a second glance at Lois, thinking her a new girl in town who had escaped their vigilance. She walked through Buckeye Lane to the Bartletts'; lowered her parasol as she passed under the maples in the yard; bent over the lilacs that overflowed upon the path, and smiled at the drumstick as she took it in hand to announce herself. Nan opened the door. If she was surprised to find Mrs. Holton on her threshold, her manner did not betray the fact. Mrs. Holton owed her a call--a call which by the social canons was slightly overdue. "I am very glad to see you," said Nan cordially. It was cool and pleasant in the little cottage. (Houses in Montgomery are always pleasant and cool on the warmest days!) Lois sank into a seat, her eyes taking in the room at a glance. The flute on the music cabinet and the 'cello beside the piano did not escape her. On the table, where presumably Nan performed her literary labors, lay the week's darning. There was no denying the essential domesticity of the atmosphere. Lois vaguely remembered that room from the days when Professor Bartlett was living, and she had been a frequent visitor, delighting in the cookies and raspberry shrub that were the inevitable items of Bartlett hospitality when youngsters were about. "I'm sorry Rose isn't here; she's spending the day in Indianapolis," Nan observed. "I knew that. That's why I came to-day," replied Lois, smiling. "I wished to see you alone."