assemblies, and a lot of other trash, about which in fact he cared
nothing, and so knew nothing. Not caring and not knowing, he could not
carry on his conversation a step. The mere fact that Miss Walter had shown
that she was in real sympathy with him in an indifference to the opera
threw him off the track which he never should have been on, and brought
his untimely conversation to an end.

Now, as it happened, Laura's next partner brought her to the very same
place, or rather she never left it, but Will Hackmatack came and claimed
her dance as soon as Bob's was done. Dr. Ollapod had only got down to the
appeal made to the lords sitting in equity, when I noticed Will's
beginning. He spoke right out of the thing he was thinking of.

"I saw you riding this afternoon," he said.

"Yes," said Laura, "we went out by the red mills, and drove up the hill by
Mr. Pond's."

"Did you?" said Will, eagerly. "Did you see the beehives?"

"Beehives? no;--are there beehives?"

"Why, yes, did not you know that Mr. Pond knows more about bees than
all the world beside? At least, I believe so. He has a gold medal from
Paris for his honey or for something. And his arrangements there are
very curious."

"I wish I had known it," said Laura. "I kept bees last summer, and they
always puzzled me. I tried to get books; but the books are all written for
Switzerland, or England, or anywhere but Orange County."