Harley Grove by five o'clock."

"I can't help being late; it is a blessing you see me now," answered
Alice. "I wonder you waited for me, Bessie."

"Well, my dear," answered Bessie, "I would much rather walk with you
than take a solitary ramble by myself. I thought," she added, "you were
going to bring that new Irish girl with you. Has she come?"

"Has she not come?" answered Alice. "Oh, Bessie, Bessie, it is because
of her I am late. Oh, Bessie, she is quite too dreadful."

"How so?" asked Bessie.

"She is the most extraordinary, wild, reckless, absolutely unladylike,
vulgar person I ever came across in the whole course of my life."

"What a lot of adjectives!" laughed Bessie. "I shall be quite curious to
see her; from your description she must be a monster."

"She is a monster, a human monster," answered Alice; "and the worst of
it is, Bessie, that in some extraordinary way she has fascinated both
father and mother, and even Fred--Fred, who hates girls as a rule; they
are all so taken up with this blessed Kitty Malone that they don't mind
her perfectly savage manners. I can tell you I am quite miserable about
it."

"Poor Alice," answered Bessie in a sympathetic tone. "I suppose then,
dear, she is not coming with us?"