likely to select for the meeting. Just before dressing she had
been reading about the wonderful _him_--in Robert Chambers'
latest story--and she had spent full fifteen minutes of blissful
reverie over the accompanying Fisher illustration. Now she was
issuing hopefully forth, as hopefully as if adventure were the
rule and order of life in Sutherland, instead of a desperate
monotony made the harder to bear by the glory of its scenery.

She had got only far enough from the house to be visible to the
second-story windows when a young voice called:

"Ruthie! Aren't you going to wait for me?"

Ruth halted; an expression anything but harmonious with the
pretty blue costume stormed across her face. "I won't have her
along!" she muttered. "I simply won't!" She turned slowly and,
as she turned, effaced every trace of temper with a dexterity
which might have given an onlooker a poorer opinion of her
character than perhaps the facts as to human nature justify. The
countenance she presently revealed to those upper windows was
sunny and sweet. No one was visible; but the horizontal slats in
one of the only closed pair of shutters and a vague suggestion
of movement rather than form behind them gave the impression
that a woman, not far enough dressed to risk being seen from the
street, was hidden there. Evidently Ruth knew, for it was toward
this window that she directed her gaze and the remark: "Can't
wait, dear. I'm in a great hurry. Mamma wants the silk right
away and I've got to match it."

"But I'll be only a minute," pleaded the voice--a much more