As she neared the big entrance-door, heavily burdened with her flowers, she came face to face with her two New York friends, who were sauntering carelessly from the office, evidently having lingered over a late breakfast. As the girl sighted the familiar faces she forgot their apparent slight of a few days before and nodded pleasantly, her cheeks dimpling with pleasure. But, to her surprise, a rigid stare was their only response to her greeting, and, with a sudden start of shocked dismay, the girl hastened past them into the office, where she was relieved of her flowers by one of the bell-boys. Smarting from the rankle of the insult, but still dazed at the suddenness of it, she walked slowly down to the car and mechanically stepped into it. As she glided down the road she sat stiff and erect, her mind apparently on the steering-wheel, although in reality her senses were in a maze of dumb bewilderment. A half-hour later, after running the car into the stable, for she was to use it again later, she made her way into the house, up to her room, and to her closet. Here, with her face buried in the blackness of hanging skirts and coats, she stood silently for a few moments, trying to argue herself out of the hurt feeling that would not be downed. “Oh, what a little ninny I am,” she exclaimed at last. “_What do I care_ if they did give me the ‘go by,’ as Dick says.” She gave a half laugh, that quickly merged into a long sigh as the thought came, that, after all, the girls had not really hurt her as much as they had hurt themselves. “No, I will not allow myself,” she closed her mouth determinedly, “to be so small as to let it hurt me any more.” She had a very restful afternoon, with a good long nap, and a nice time reading out in the hammock, and then, a little before six, she set out on her ride to the station in a tense state of expectancy, for she was anxious to see her Liberty boys, as she had elected to call them.