In her heart Ethel longed to say something to Frank Barton to ease the wound which he had suffered that afternoon. Should she overtake him and speak? And then, even while she hesitated, the humming of a smoothly running automobile sounded behind her. She turned to look, startled, fearing it was Jim Mayberry. But a girl was driving the car that swerved in toward the curb, stopping just beside the manager of the Hapwood-Diller Manufacturing Company. “Oh, Mr. Barton!” The girl in the car was handsome, but with a high color and a shrill voice. She had a great deal of light hair, which was carefully dressed; she wore an expensive motor hat and veil; her cerise motor coat was of heavy silk. If the frame ever sets off the picture to advantage, then Helen Fuller was a work of art! “It’s just too, too lovely that I should catch you this way, Mr. Barton,” she cried, as Ethel approached nearer. “You can’t say you are busy and I am _sure_ it is not yet dinner time. I _must_ see you about our garden festival. You know, for the Red Cross. We _all_ must do our bit _these_ days. Do hop in and advise with poor me.” Ethel came within range of Barton’s vision. He gave her as usual one of his warm, kind smiles, lifting his hat. Helen Fuller stared at the passing girl, who plainly heard her scornful query: “One of your factory hands, Mr. Barton?” “One of our office force--and one of the most valuable on the pay roll of the Hapwood-Diller Company, Miss Fuller, I assure you.” But the cheerful reply did not take the barb out of the wound Helen Fuller’s question had made. A little farther along the street, however, Ethel shook herself and murmured: “What a perfect fool I am! It is ridiculous to mind anything that Helen Fuller says. She remembers very well going to school with me and that I was always at or near the head of the class and she at the foot. That was before Grandon Fuller had that stock in the company left him by Uncle Diller. Dear me! how the possession of money changes some people.” Then, and cheerfully, she exclaimed aloud: “Ah! here’s Benway.” A young man with a perfectly splendid head of brown curly hair, flawless complexion, level brows, fine, open gray eyes set well apart, a straight nose and lips not full enough to be sensuous but not too thin, the whole countenance softened by a cleft chin and humorous lines at the corners of his mouth--that was Benway Chase. He came swinging along the walk and seized Ethel companionably by her right arm, although that placed him upon the inner side of the path. She met his look with one of pleasure, and they went on together like the good comrades they were. People whom they knew and met greeted them with a matter-of-course air. To see Ethel Clayton and Ben Chase together was nothing astonishing for Mailsburg folk. They had been neighbors and chums since they were in rompers.