"Oh, just come to bring an invitation to tea from Edith."

Dr. Woodburn entered as soon as tea was ready. He was the ideal father
one meets in books, and if there was one thing on earth Beth was proud
of it was "dear daddy." He was a fine, broad-browed man, strikingly like
Beth, but with hair silvery long before its time. His eyes were like
hers, too, though Beth's face had a little shadow of gloom that did not
belong to the doctor's genial countenance.

It was a pleasant little tea-table to which they sat down. Mrs Martin
always took tea with them, and as she talked over Briarsfield gossip to
the doctor, Beth, as was her custom, looked silently out of the window
upon the green sloping lawn.

"Well, Beth, dear," said Dr. Woodburn, "has Mrs. Martin told you that
young Arthur Grafton is coming to spend his holidays with us?"

"Arthur Grafton! Why, no!" said Beth with pleased surprise.

"He is coming. He may drop in any day. He graduated this spring, you
know. He's a fine young man, I'm told."

"Oh! Beth ain't got time to think about anything but that slim young
Mayfair, now-a-days," put in Mrs. Martin. "He's been out there with her
most of the afternoon, and me with all them cherries to tend to."

Beth saw a faint shadow cross her father's face, but put it aside as
fancy only and began to think of Arthur. He was an old play-fellow of
hers. An orphan at an early age, he had spent his childhood on his