"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the radiance of beauty. "But I--I thank you very much--just the same." "But I want you to go to that party..." "You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care to go, now. I--" "Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago." "Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be out of place there." "Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck. "Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they belong...." She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied. "You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity of an original philosopher. XV MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE Nat didn't go to the Lockwood lawn fete, and did excuse himself on the plea of being unable to leave the store. I'm afraid the young man had a faint, fond hope that Josie would be offended; but his excuse was accepted without remonstrance. And, indeed, it was at that time quite a reasonable one. Tracey had not been added to the staff, although business was booming, and Saturday night is, as everyone who has lived in a Radville knows, the busiest of the week; all the stores keep open late on Saturday--some as late as eleven--and frequently take in half the week's income between noon and the closing hour. Duncan really couldn't be spared; so it's probable that Josie cloaked her disappointment and comforted herself with the assurance that her selection of the day had been an error in judgment, of which she would not again be guilty. But the party came off, without fail, and that on a wonderful, still, moonlit night; and everybody voted it a splendid success. The _Citizen_ in its next issue recorded the event to the extent of a column and a half of reading matter, called it a social function, and described the gowns of the leading ladies of society present in bewildering phrases. I was not invited, but the owner of the paper was, and his wife wrote the description with the assistance of the entire editorial and reportorial force, a dictionary and some evil if suppressed language from the foreman of the composing-room. I read the proofs with an admiration strongly tinctured with awe, and found it lacking in one particular only: no mention was made of Roland Barnette's first open-faced suit.