"O Mr. Peter Bell!" she jeered softly. "To be so slow to recognise an old friend--a connection of your own family. Dear, dear, you should go to an oculist! Has it been coming on long? Can you still distinguish trees and houses?" The voice told him who its owner was, though it was a degree richer in quality than when he had heard it last, two years before. "Shirley Townsend!" he cried. "Miss Shirley, I mean, of course. Well, well! No wonder I---- When did you come? And you’ve grown up!" "Of course I have. Has n’t Nancy grown up? I ’m a year older than she, too. And I came last night--a whole month before they expected me. I was supposed to be going to stop in New York with Aunt Isabel for a month--after two long years away off in England at school! But Marian Hille’s mother met her at the ship--she ’s the girl who went with me, you know--and they came right along home. I could n’t stand it to stop in New York, and I came with them. And you don’t mean ’Miss Shirley’ at all, of course--with Jane married to Murray!" "Then you don’t mean ’Mr. Peter Bell.’" "You look terribly elderly yourself. But I knew you! The mere fact that you are not wearing the same clothes you were when I went away----" "It was n’t your clothes--except the extension on the length of them. It was--it was----" "I understand. My hair is up. I no longer wear two big black bows behind my ears." "Your cheeks," protested Peter. "You--the English air, I suppose----" "No, I ’m not a pale little, frail little girl any more, thanks to miles and miles of walking. You don’t look very frail, either. Are n’t we delightfully frank--after staring each other out of countenance? Is Nancy at home, and Mrs. Bell?" "They ’ll be delighted to see you." "They ’ll _know_ me, too," laughed Shirley. "She certainly has grown up," thought Peter, when Shirley had walked away from him toward Gay Street. He rather wished he had not been so obviously rushing away from home when he met this new-old acquaintance. The little Shirley had always been a good friend of his; the older Shirley looked distinctly better worth knowing. But Peter’s days were busy ones; he had few moments for lingering by the side of pretty girls; nor was he wont to spend much time lamenting his deprivations. Shirley Townsend’s appearance at the door of the Bell house caused a flurry of welcoming. Nancy, after two minutes of shyness at the sight of her former chum looking so like and so unlike herself, discovered that the unlikeness was going to make no difference. It was a great relief, for somebody who had seen Marian Hille at the end of one year at the English school had declared her grown insufferably consequential, and had prophesied that Shirley Townsend would come home "spoiled."