a youth who clerks in a bank and a girl who works in a post office
is tame business to one who has been participating in the panoplied
romances of the high-born.

Missy lived, those days, to dream in solitude or to go to Tess's
where she might read of further enchantments. Then, too, at Tess's,
she had a confidante, a kindred spirit, and could speak out of what
was filling her soul. There is nothing more satisfying than to be
able to speak out of what is filling your soul. The two of them got
to using a special parlance when alone. It was freely punctuated
with phrases so wonderfully camouflaged that no Frenchman would have
guessed that they were French.

"Don't I hear the frou-frou of silken skirts?" inquired Missy one
afternoon when she was in Tess's room, watching her friend comb the
golden tresses which hung in rich profusion about her shoulders.

"It's the mater," answered Tess. "She's dressed to pay some visits
to the gentry. Later she's to dine at the vicarage. She's ordered
out the trap, I believe."

"Oh, not the governess-cart?"

Yes, Tess said it WAS the governess-cart; and her answer was as
solemn as Missy's question.

It was that same "dinner" at the "vicarage"--in Cherryvale one dines
at mid-day, and the Presbyterian minister blindly believed he had
invited the O'Neills for supper--that gave Tess one of her most
brilliant inspirations. It came to her quite suddenly, as all true