"So I ran away to you," she added wearily. "That was right. We will all make you welcome," said Dolly cordially, sure that her father and mother, and her two little brothers, would all make good her promise. "You should have seen them all peeping out of the window in amazement this afternoon when I came walking up with the grand Devereaux at my side," she continued consciously. "I asked him in, and he sat on the porch nearly half an hour talking to me. When he was leaving, I asked him to call again, and pinned some pansies in his buttonhole, and what do you think he said, Liane?" "I could never guess," the girl answered, with a secret pang of the keenest jealousy. "He said: 'What exquisite pansies! They remind me of Miss Lester's eyes--such a rare, purplish blue, with dark shadings." Liane caught her breath with stifled rapture, that he had remembered her, but Dolly added wistfully: "He must have read in my face that I was disappointed at not having a compliment, too, for he went on to say that my eyes were just like bluebells. Liane, which are the prettier flowers, pansies or bluebells?" "I should say that it is all a matter of taste," Liane replied gently. So presently they went upstairs to bed, but Dolly was so excited she talked half the night. "Liane, have you heard of the Beauty Show that is to be held in the town hall next week?" she asked, as she rolled her yellow locks in kid curlers to make them fluffy. Liane shook her head. "No? Why, that is strange. Every one is talking about it, and they say that you and I are pretty enough to compete for the prize, although Miss Roma Clarke intends to exhibit her handsomest portrait." "Is it a portrait show?" "It is this way, Liane: A Boston artist has a commission to design the outside cover of a magazine for December, and he wants to get a lovely young girl for the central figure--a young girl taken from life. So he has advertised for five hundred pictures of beauties, to be delivered by next week, when they will be exhibited on the walls of the town hall, and judges appointed to decide on the fairest. Of course, the artist himself is to be one of the judges, and they say that Mr. Clarke and Mr. Devereaux will be two of the others, but I don't know the rest. Don't you think it's unfair, Liane, to have Roma Clarke's father and lover for judges? Of course, they will show her some partiality in their votes." Liane murmured with dry lips in a choking voice: "Is Mr. Devereaux Miss Clarke's lover?" "So they say, but I hope it's not true. I'm trying to catch him myself," confessed Dolly quite frankly. "I don't really think it's fair for Miss Clarke to compete for the prize, anyway. She ought to leave the chance to some beautiful, poor girl that needs that hundred dollars so much worse than she does!" "A hundred dollars!" exclaimed Liane. "Yes; just think of it! You must try for the prize, Liane."