"Well, it seems to me that if you enjoyed it so much, we'll have to come again some time very soon. Shall we?"

Arethusa accepted this invitation with undoubted pleasure.

"I'll be a little more careful, though, in my selection of our next play, so there will be nothing in it you could misunderstand that might possibly spoil a few moments for us. I don't want any spoiled moments with you," tenderly.

Arethusa blushed deeply and her head drooped.

_She_ had spoiled it, all by herself; those moments of unhappiness had been all her own fault, because she was such a goose. This play had been as near perfection as a play could be, thought she, who knew so little of plays. At the next one, she herself would see that nothing of the kind occurred. She had learned her lesson, and there would be no more misinterpretation of Mr. Bennet's charming little ways.

Mr. Bennet was just a bit conscience-stricken in the morning by the way he had turned that episode, when reviewing it at his office. She was a dear child. The Worthington interest was a solid one. There were dollars galore that stood to that name in various financial inst.i.tutions, and when one is a dealer in the commodities known as stocks and bonds, one must not let the smallest chance slip by to cement a friendship outside which might prove to extend itself into the business world. There was no telling how quickly bread cast upon the waters might return. At least, it could do no sort of harm. She was a dear child!

Which explains why Arethusa received a long green box, brought to her by George as she ate her luncheon. It was a box of American Beauties with stems a yard long, roses that were far too beautiful as roses to be real, and that seemed to Arethusa to have gathered all the perfume of heaven within their deep, red centers. She sniffed and smelled them in ecstasy; and stroked the glossy green leaves that spread out from their stems, so marvelous as leaves. She could hardly part with them that they might be put in the tallest vase on the library table, which would display their beauty to the greatest advantage.

Inside the box was a tiny note....

"Would Miss Worthington do Mr. Bennet the honor of reserving the date of the January Cotillion for him?"

"But that's so awfully far off," objected Arethusa, as she read this communication aloud to her interested parents. "It's only the first of November right now!"

It was entirely too lovely of Mr. Bennet to send her roses; it heaped coals of fire with effective vengeance. She was almost ashamed to accept them. But she did wish that he had made that engagement for something a trifle closer at hand.

"You little goose!" exclaimed Ross. "Why, that is _the_ event of the whole Lewisburg season! And not one debutante in ten out of a winter ever gets to go! As superlative as I'll have to admit Mr. Bennet's taste in flowers, I believe most girls would care far more about that invitation than they would about the roses!"

"Really!" Arethusa brightened up considerably.

"I'd let a man laugh at me every day from now till Christmas if he'd ask me to go to the January Cotillion with him," continued Ross, "that is, if I was a young lady with any hope of being a social success."

"But he wasn't laughing at me," protested his daughter. She had narrated the affair in detail. "I told you that, Father. He said very positively he wasn't laughing at me!"

"Well," replied Ross, "it makes no difference what caused his mirth, it seems to me that I'd a.s.suredly welcome it, with such effect!"

CHAPTER XIX

Arethusa was going shopping, and going shopping for the very first time in her life, alone.

And thereby hangs a tale.

Wednesday coming was Miss Asenath's birthday, and Arethusa had completely lost track of that important fact to forget it until this Monday morning. She, who had given Miss Asenath something, if only a tight bouquet of flowers from the plants brought into the house for the winter, every birthday anniversary since she was old enough to lisp "birfday" and comprehend its significance, had forgotten that this event was so near. She could have made her a gift as she generally did had there been time to finish it and send it so it would reach the Farm on the twentieth; but it would not be a birthday gift if Miss Asenath did not get it on her birthday (this was logic to Arethusa); so in her distress she had appealed to Elinor.

And Elinor, after asking if Miss Asenath ever wore shawls and learning that she did all the winter through, suggested that Arethusa purchase her a rose-colored shoulder shawl of silk and several yards of rose-colored ribbon to match for the locket. If it was started today, it would reach there in time.

Charming Idea!

So Arethusa was to take the automobile, as Elinor had a Board meeting of importance this morning and could not go with her; seek the magnificent establishment where she had accompanied her mother so many times to shop; inquire of a floor-walker the location of the department of shawls; purchase one of the same, and charge it to Elinor's name and address; and return home in the machine. Such were the directions given by Elinor.

They seemed to cover every detail for the buying of Miss Asenath's birthday gift; and, moreover, sounded very simple. As viewed by Arethusa, although Miss Eliza would have been horrified at the bare suggestion, she could surely buy one rose-colored silk shawl without a.s.sistance.

She loved her reflection in the mirror when she was dressed for this adventure; a jaunty new hat with a flyaway feather, a new suit, and even gloves and shoes as slim as Miss Warren's. And besides, pride of her heart, her costume was enhanced with furs of rich, dark brown, as silky smooth in appearance as those she had envied that visitor who had been so trying a visitor. There was also, a half-formed Hope within that when she looked so well as she did this morning she would meet the Wonderful Mr. Bennet somewhere downtown that made her eyes shine, which added to the attractiveness of the reflection.

She left the car in front of the big shop and bade Clay wait for her with an air of dignity that was an almost ludicrous imitation of Elinor's manner of uttering the same words. Clay smiled broadly as he touched his cap, recognizing her model.

Arethusa tripped gayly into the store and a polite and obsequious gentleman escorted her to that counter where she might find shawls, and directed that she be waited upon, immediately.

The very prettiest girl among those in this department stepped forward.

She was the one which Arethusa might have chosen to wait upon her, had she been choosing. But she was a dreadfully tired-looking girl, even more tired looking than pretty, Arethusa noticed when she was closer.

She had great dark circles under her eyes and a pathetic sort of droop to the corners of her mouth. Her black dress made her look still more forlorn, for she was very pale and it accentuated the pallor.

But the girl smiled at Arethusa; she could not help it, tired as she looked and really was, for Arethusa's eagerness to purchase was so amusingly apparent.

"I want to see silk shawls," announced Arethusa, "rose-colored silk shawls."

A bewildering variety of shawls was immediately spread before her, in every conceivable shade of the color she had requested. How Miss Asenath would have loved that heap of gayety! Arethusa found it terribly difficult to make a choice. She picked out three as the prettiest of the collection, after much deliberation and selection and rejection; but each one was so lovely that she wanted every one of them for Miss Asenath. Then she made an appeal to the girl.

"Which of these do _you_ think is the very prettiest? It's for an old lady; the dearest old lady!"

The girl bent her dark head over the shawls Arethusa was holding.

"Is it for your grandmother?"

"No," replied Arethusa. "It's for my Aunt 'Senath. She's an invalid."

Then, of necessity almost, she must tell Miss Asenath's interesting story, beginning way back at the very beginning, with the Romance before the Fall. Her sympathetic telling of her Tale, her gestures and her earnest voice, attracted every other girl at that counter, for it was not a very busy morning, so that long before she had finished, four or five other heads were bent in solemn consultation above the three shawls from which final choice was to be made. They could not all agree as to the one most desirable; tastes were different as to which shade of rose would really be most becoming and best for Miss Asenath.

Finally, Arethusa and Jessie (for so the first girl's name had been discovered to be) decided that majority must rule as always, and selected as Miss Asenath's birthday gift what they themselves and two of the other girls liked best, the one that was in between in tone.

"I can get ribbon just this color, can't I?" asked the shopper anxiously, once her choice was actually made.

"For the locket?" inquired Jessie.

"Yes."

"Sure you can. Suppose you just take this over to the ribbon counter and match it right now, it's just in the next aisle, and then you can bring it back to me."

Arethusa went away joyfully, bearing the shawl.

"Ain't you afraid, Jess, to let her go off like that?" asked one of Jessie's contemporaries, of a more distrustful turn of mind. "'Sposin'

she don't come back with it? It ain't paid for, and she never told you who she was."

"Oh, she'll come back," replied Jessie, confidently, "She'll come back, all right. I ain't the least bit afraid. 'Specially when she looks as much like an angel as she talks! I wish there was more like her to wait on, and then it wouldn't be so hard to be standing here all day long.

Yes, ma'am, these shawls are all silk," to a personage who had paused to examine the wares which Jessie had not yet put away.

It would be impossible to mention her in any way save as a "personage."

She exuded superiority and a consciousness of a high station in life from every aristocratic pore.

"I doubt it. They look rather cheap." She tossed the whole heap aside, contemptuously. "Have you nothing any better?"