“That will be fine. But you must bring every goodlooking boy in the county and make him bow down and worship Helen. She is not used to it, but she is tickled to death over these Southern boys, and I’m going to give her the best time she ever had in her life.” “I ’ll do everything you command--except bow down myself. Bob’s agreed to do that.” She smiled in spite of her effort to look serious, and her mother pinched her arm. She laughed. “So you and Bob St. Clare were out there plotting before we could get out of the train?” “Nothing unlawful, I assure you.” The first day she allowed Gaston to monopolise, and then began his torture. She declared there were others with whom she must be friendly. She determined to give a ball to Helen the next week, and began preparations. It was a new business for Gaston, but he did his best to please her, in a pathetic half-hearted sort of way. He ran all sorts of errands, and executed her orders with tact. “Oh! Sallie let the ball go. I don’t care for it. I can do nothing to ever repay you for the good time I’ve been having,” said Helen as they sat in her room one night. “We are going to have it, I tell you. I don’t care how much Mr. Gaston sulks. I’m not taking orders from him.” “No, but you’d like to--you know it.” “What an idea!” “You know you like him better than all the others put together.” “Nonsense. I’m as free as a bird.” “Then what are you blushing for?” “I’m not.” But her face was scarlet. “You Southern girls are so queer. The moment you like a man you’re as sly as a cat, and deny that you even know him. When I find the man I love I don’t care who knows it, if he loves me.” “What do you think of Bob St. Clare?” “I like him.” “Hasn’t he made love to you yet?” “No, and the only one of the crowd who hasn’t. I don’t mind confessing that I never had love made to me before this visit. In Boston it’s a serious thing for a young man to call once. The second call, means a family council, and at the third he must make a declaration of his intentions or face consequences. Down here, the boys don’t seem to have anything to do except to make their girl friends happy, and feel they are the queens of the earth, and that their only mission is to minister to them. And some of your girls are engaged to six boys at the same time.” “Don’t you like it?” “It’s glorious. I feel that if I hadn’t come down here to see you I’d have missed the meaning of life.” “Don’t our boys make love beautifully?” “I never dreamed of anything like it. They make it so seriously, so dead in earnest, you can’t help believing them.” “And Bob hasn’t said a word?” “Hasn’t breathed a hint.” “Then you have him sure. They are hit hard when they are silent like that. Bob made love to me the second day he ever saw me.” “Don’t tease me, dear,” said Helen as she put her pretty rosy cheek against the dark beauty of the South. “Do you really think he likes me seriously?” “He’s crazy about you, goose!”