Without stopping, the driver cracked his whip over his team and plunged ahead. There was rather a dazed look on Junior’s face as he lurched back and dropped into his seat. Edith Williams leaned forward and with wide eyes looked at Junior. “What did he say?” she cried. “‘Father’s fetching her,’” answered Junior tartly, and it happened that he accompanied the information by a look at Edith. Unquestionably he saw the lunge of her angered heart. He saw the red blood surge up to her lips and paint her cheeks. He saw the black malice that stirred in the depths of her eyes. He caught the smothered exclamation, a shocking exclamation, that arose to her lips, and he knew, and every member of the class knew, that the bitter little “Damn!” which sprang past the lips of Edith Williams was unadulterated, forceful invective. She was outdone in the first round. Mahala would not ride to the church with the remainder of the class. Why was she in that omnibus among the sons and daughters of blacksmiths, and cobblers, and lawn cleaners? Why had she not had the sense to think of having her uncle take her in their beautiful surrey? Why was she always letting Mahala Spellman get ahead of her? There rushed through her heart the conviction that when Mahala stepped through the door, in some way she would have managed, probably with half the money Edith had spent, to outdo her costume. The velvet of her dress, rose-petal soft, shut her in like the walls of a furnace. The heat and anger in her eyes made her what she never before in her life had been—arrestingly beautiful. She bit her dry lips and clenched her gloved hands. What matter that she had bought herself what she felt would be said to be the handsomest basket of flowers that would be carried to the stage that night, with the imaginary name of an imaginary lover attached by her own hands to the handle? What matter that she had coached both her uncle and her aunt concerning the handsome offerings that they were to send up to her? In some way, Mahala would see to it that she would have finer. For one thing it was certain, after the expense of the piano lamp of four years ago, that Junior would stop at nothing. No doubt the basket he would send Mahala would far surpass hers.