Kitty squeezed the hand that still held hers and answered, warmly: "Oh, you dear, I hope we'll be as good friends as our fathers were!" And Allison answered, winking back the tears that had sprung to her eyes: "Thank you for telling us about the laurel. Mother will appreciate it so much." While this conversation was going on at Lloyd's elbow, Betty came up to her on the other side. "Please see if my dress is all right in the back," she whispered. "It feels as if it were unfastened." Then, as Lloyd assured her it was properly buttoned, she added, in an undertone: "Have you met Maud Minor? She's one of the new girls." Lloyd shook her head. "Then I'm going to introduce you as soon as I can. She knows Malcolm MacIntyre." "Knows Malcolm!" exclaimed Lloyd, in amazement. "Where on earth did she ever meet him?" "At the seashore last summer. She can't talk about anything else. She thinks he is so handsome and has such beautiful manners and is so adorably romantic. Those are her very words. She has his picture. Evidently he has talked to her about you, for she's so curious to know you. She asked a string of questions that I thought were almost impertinent." "Where is she?" asked Lloyd. "There, that girl in white crossing the room with the fat one in lavender." Lloyd gave a long, critical look, and then said, slowly: "She's the prettiest girl in the room, and she makes me think of something I've read, but I can't recall it." "I know," said Betty, "but you'll laugh at me if I say Tennyson again. It's from 'Maud'-- "'I kissed her slender hand. She took the kiss sedately. Maud is not seventeen, But she is tall and stately.' "But she is not as sedate as she looks," added Betty, truthfully. "I'd like her better if she didn't gush. That's the only word that will express it. And it seemed queer for her to take me into her confidence the minute she was introduced. Right away she gave me to understand that she'd had a sort of an affair with Malcolm. She didn't say so in so many words, but she gave me the impression that he had been deeply interested in her, in a romantic way, you know." Lloyd looked at Maud again, more critically this time, and with keener interest. Then her thoughts flew back to the churchyard stile where they had paused in their gathering of Christmas greens one winter day. For an instant she seemed to see the handsome boy looking down at her, begging a token of the Princess Winsome, and saying, in a low tone, "I'll be whatever you want me to be, Lloyd." Juliet's voice broke in on her reverie. "Miss Sherman, allow me to present Miss Minor." Maud was slightly taller than Lloyd, but it was not her extra inches alone which seemed to give her the air of looking down on every one. It was her patronizing manner. Lloyd resented it. Instinctively she drew herself up and responded somewhat haughtily.