"Were you really lost?" asked Steve. "Yes. I've been wandering around for at least two hours." "How came you to go out there?" he asked. "I was expected to go somewhere else," she answered with one of her elfin looks. Steve was silent. Mentally he was wondering if this was the mainspring of conduct in all women. He thought very likely it was. Mary often asked his advice and then always took her own way, and it was invariably opposite to the course he had indicated. They had not gone much further, when, happening to look around for something, Nannie caught a glimpse of her dress skirt and saw that it was creased and stained with mud. "There now! I've just ruined my gown!" she exclaimed, and then burst into passionate tears. "Miss Branscome! don't!" said Steve, who was fairly startled out of his usual quiet into something akin to excitement. "Don't! I beg of you. Nannie! don't cry, my dear!" He failed to notice how he had spoken; so did she, apparently. "We can make it all right, I know," he continued, but for a time she refused to be comforted. "You would cry too, I guess, if you were in my place and would get such an awful scolding at home." "No doubt I would," assented Steve in deep distress. "I wish I were dead and buried under a landslide," sobbed Nannie. In the depth of her sorrow she wanted to delve deep into mother earth. "Oh, no. Don't wish that! What should we do without you?" said Steve earnestly. "Oh, you needn't to worry," replied Nannie pettishly, the violence of her grief having spent itself. "Nothing so good as that is going to happen. I shall live to get home and have my head taken off, and stalk around as a torso ever afterward." "Now do let me see if I can't set things to rights," said Steve. "You've no idea how handy I am in such matters." He proved the truth of his words by going to work upon the injured gown, and after patient effort bringing it out of its dilapidated condition in such shape that only a keen eye would detect any sign of mishap. Nannie was delighted and, stimulated by the excitement attendant upon her rapid change of fortunes, became quite talkative. "I wouldn't have minded it so much, but I have on one of my best gowns, and Aunt Frances makes such a fuss every time she has to buy me anything. She says it's of no use to spend on me. It don't amount to a row of pins." Steve looked at her inquiringly. In actual time he was many years her senior, but Nannie had been in society for a season now, and even young girls age fast there--too fast, by far. "She means I don't bid fair to get married off well. I'm not very popular, you know." Still Steve was silent. Nannie was speaking in a language of which he was ignorant. "I dressed this morning to go to Joe Harding's breakfast, but I hate him, and I went walking instead. Now I've got to see some of the girls who went and make up a lot of stuff about it at home, or Aunt Frances'll be awfully mad."