"I don't care. It's such fun to have so many admirers showing me attention at the same time," laughed the little incarnation of sunny beauty and unconscious cruelty. "But it's cruel to make the young men suffer so!" hazarded the kind-hearted old lady, and again the girl laughed archly: "Suffer? Oh, pshaw! they need to have the conceit taken out of them," and Ladybird began to run over the category of the faults and foibles of her admirers, making such sarcastic hits that the old Quakeress shook with silent laughter and gave up her futile lecture on coquetry. But when the girl paused for breath, all rosy and laughing, Aunt Prue exclaimed: "Thee hasn't said a word about thy last lover--about Earle Winans." "My thirteenth lover. Oh, no, I have no fault to find with him. He is simply perfect," cried Ladybird, as innocently as if she had not guessed that Aura Stanley was listening behind her parlor blinds to every word. Aura was listening, her eyes wrathful, her cheeks burning. But she heard no more just then. After that saucy parting shot Ladybird sat down on the porch steps like a little child, with her round, dimpled chin in the hollow of her soft little hand, and fell to watching the rosy sunset as the god of day sank to rest behind the purple western hills. Her face wore a pensive cast that made her look positively angelic. And yet she was actually meditating a deed of girlish _diablerie_ on the morrow, the naughty little coquette! The next day was perfect--a May day, clear and golden, and when the fervid sunbeams began to dry the dew-tears from the eyes of the blue violets in the grass, the gay picnic party assembled in the Rosemont orchard by the river, the scene of the day's festivities. All the prettiest girls of the village were there, and not one of Ladybird's lovers had stayed away. And how they envied handsome Earle Winans, who was her special companion for the day, while they had to be content with other girls--pretty enough, to be sure--but--"not the rose." Aura Stanley had come with Clarence Grey, but she knew she was second choice, that he had asked Ladybird first, and she could hardly control her bitter resentment. Ladybird gave her a saucy nod and smile when they met, but Aura averted her head in jealous anger when she saw how lovely her rival looked in her white flannel suit with the blue silk blouse showing under the open white jacket, and the white sailor hat crowning the little head, with its fluffy rings of golden brown. "Miss Stanley would not speak to you--why?" Earle Winans asked in surprise. "Because I teased her yesterday. I--I--told her I'd be wearing that ring of yours within a week," and Ladybird gave him a coquettish side glance from her dazzling eyes that made his heart leap and his cheek burn. She was playing with fire, this thoughtless girl, for Earle Winans' heart knew how to love with burning passion. His voice trembled with emotion as he said eagerly: