There was a wistful note in her voice, and Lawrence, detecting it, said, hurriedly, not giving himself time to get frightened: “Oh, you’d better go to this one. And if you like I’ll call around and take you.” He wondered if she would think him very presumptuous. He thought her voice sounded colder as she said: “I am afraid that it would be too much trouble for you.” “It wouldn’t be any trouble at all,” he stammered. “I’ll be very pleased to take you.” In the end Bessy had consented to go, and the next evening Lawrence called for her in the rose-red autumn dusk. Bessy was ready and waiting. She was dressed in what was for her unusual elegance, and Lawrence wondered why people called Bessy Houghton so plain. Her figure was strikingly symmetrical and softly curved. Her abundant, dark-brown hair, instead of being parted plainly and drawn back into a prim coil, as usual, was dressed high on her head, and a creamy rose nestled amid the becoming puffs and waves. She wore black, as she always did, but it was a lustrous black silk, simply and fashionably made, with frost-like frills of lace at her firm round throat and dainty wrists. Her cheeks were delicately flushed, and her wood-brown eyes were sparkling under her long lashes. She offered him a half-opened bud for his coat and pinned it on for him. As he looked down at her he noticed what a sweet mouth she had—full and red, with a half child-like curve. The fact that Lawrence Eastman took Bessy Houghton to the Bailey’s party made quite a sensation at that festal scene. People nodded and winked and wondered. “An old maid and her money,” said Milly Fiske spitefully. Milly, as was well known, had a liking for Lawrence herself. Lawrence began to “go with” Bessy Houghton regularly after that. In his single-mindedness he never feared that Bessy would misjudge his motives or imagine him to be prompted by mercenary designs. He never thought of her riches himself, and it never occurred to him that she would suppose he did. He soon realized that he loved her, and he ventured to hope timidly that she loved him in return. She was always rather reserved, but the few favors that meant nothing from other girls meant a great deal from Bessy. The evenings he spent with her in her pretty sitting room, their moonlight drives over long, satin-smooth stretches of snowy roads, and their walks home from church and prayer meeting under the winter stars, were all so many moments of supreme happiness to Lawrence. Matters had gone thus far before Mrs. Eastman got her eyes opened. At Mrs. Tom Bailey’s quilting party an officious gossip took care to inform her that Lawrence was supposed to be crazy over Bessy Houghton, who was, of course, encouraging him simply for the sake of having some one to beau her round, and who would certainly throw him over in the end, since she knew perfectly well that it was her money he was after.