Miss Hansford fell back upon her pillow vanquished and silent, while Elithe continued: “I didn’t dance a step at the hotel, because I told you I wouldn’t. Almost everybody asked me, and I wanted to so badly. I didn’t think it wicked to waltz outdoors. The music got into my brain and I had to!” “More likely the Old Harry got into your brain,” Miss Hansford said, and Elithe replied: “Perhaps it was the Old Harry. Any way, I had a good time, and,—and,—I don’t care!” Here was rebellion,—the first she had seen in her niece, and Miss Hansford knew she ought to check it, but for some reason she didn’t feel like it, and, greatly to Elithe’s astonishment, she said: “Neither do I care. Go to bed. It must be nearly midnight. You are sure you locked the door?” Ten minutes later Elithe was asleep, dreaming of music and waltzing and two-steps and Paul Ralston’s arm around her, as they whirled on and on,—they two alone,—on into a vast sea of moonlight, where she became lost in a dreamless slumber, which lasted until breakfast was over the next morning, the work done up and her aunt sewing on the rear porch. Paul, too, had his dreams of skirts whirling in circles round him, of fairy feet dancing on their toes and coming nearer and nearer to him, and of a face so close to his that he kissed it, then with a start he awoke to find that it was Elithe he had kissed and not Clarice. CHAPTER XXIII. PREPARATIONS. The day after the ball Clarice returned from New York, and the following morning several messenger boys were busy going from house to house with the little square envelopes, the meaning of which the recipients knew before they opened them, and read: Mrs. James Percy requests the honor of your presence at the marriage of her daughter, Clarice Isabel, to Mr. Paul Ralston, on Thursday Evening, August ——, 18—, at eight o’clock. St Luke’s Church, Oak City. Reception at Percy Cottage from half-past eight to eleven.