Part 26 (1/2)

But Mellicent shook her head.

”No. If you WILL both write your names down for the same dance, it is nothing more than you ought to expect.”

”But divide it, then. Please divide it,” they begged. ”We'll be satisfied.”

”_I_ shan't be!” Mellicent shook her head again merrily.

”I shan't be satisfied with anything--but to sit it out with Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Smith,” she bowed, as she took his promptly offered arm.

And Mr. Smith bore her away followed by the despairing groans of the two disappointed youths and the taunting gibes of their companions.

”There! Oh, I'm so glad you came,” sighed Mellicent. ”You didn't mind?”

”Mind? I'm in the seventh heaven!” avowed Mr. Smith with exaggerated gallantry. ”And it looked like a real rescue, too.”

Mellicent laughed. Her color deepened.

”Those boys--they're so silly!” she pouted.

”Wasn't one of them young Pennock?”

”Yes, the tall, dark one.”

”He's come back, I see.”

She flashed an understanding look into his eyes.

”Oh, yes, he's come back. I wonder if he thinks I don't know--WHY!”

”And---you?” Mr. Smith was smiling quizzically.

She shrugged her shoulders with a demure dropping of her eyes.

”Oh, I let him come back--to a certain extent. I shouldn't want him to think I cared or noticed enough to keep him from coming back--some.”

”But there's a line beyond which he may not pa.s.s, eh?”

”There certainly is!--but let's not talk of him. Oh, Mr. Smith, I'm so happy!” she breathed ecstatically.

”I'm very glad.”

In a secluded corner they sat down on a gilt settee.

”And it's all so wonderful, this--all this! Why Mr. Smith, I'm so happy I--I want to cry all the time. And that's so silly--to want to cry! But I do. So long--all my life--I've had to WAIT for things so. It was always by and by, in the future, that I was going to have--anything that I wanted. And now to have them like this, all at once, everything I want--why, Mr. Smith, it doesn't seem as if it could be true. It just can't be true!”

”But it is true, dear child; and I'm so glad--you've got your five-pound box of candy all at once at last. And I HOPE you can treat your friends to unlimited soda waters.”

”Oh, I can! But that isn't all. Listen!” A new eagerness came to her eyes. ”I'm going to give mother a present--a frivolous, foolish present, such as I've always wanted to. I'm going to give her a gold breast-pin with an amethyst in it. She's always wanted one. And I'm going to take my own money for it, too,--not the new money that father gives me, but some money I've been saving up for years--dimes and quarters and half-dollars in my baby-bank. Mother always made me save 'most every cent I got, you see. And I'm going to take it now for this pin. She won't mind if I do spend it foolishly now--with all the rest we have. And she'll be so pleased with the pin!”

”And she's always wanted one?”