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“Aye dadden’t!” said Alma, merrily.

The ladder slipped an inch, settling a little lower. Sally uttered a smothered scream. She dared not move her eyes from the rung immediately in front of them. Her face was flushed, her hair had slipped back from her damp temples. It seemed to her as if she must already have climbed down several times the length of the ladder. At every step she had to kick her skirts free.

“Permit me!” said a kind voice in the world of reeling brick walks and dwarfed gooseberry bushes below her.

Sally, with a thump at her heart, looked down to see Dr. Bates lay a firm hand upon the rocking ladder.

Speechless, she finished the descent, reeling a little unsteadily against the doctor’s shoulder as she faced about on the walk. Her face was crimson. To climb down a ladder, with him looking pleasantly up from below, and then to fall into his very arms! Sally shook out her skirts like a furious hen, and walked, with one chilly inclination of the head for acknowledgment of his courtesy, toward the waiting motor.

“Ferdie has promised Bill Bevis that you will spin me over in the motor,” said the doctor, a little timidly, when they reached it.

Sally eyed him stonily.

“Ferd–“

“Why, I had promised Bevis that I would look in to-day,” pursued the doctor, uncomfortably; “and when they telephoned about it, a few minutes ago, one of the maids said that she believed that you were going right over, and would bring me.”

“I have changed my mind,” said Sally. “Perhaps you will drive yourself over?”

“I don’t know anything about motors,” apologized the doctor, gravely.

“Ferd told one of the maids to say I would?” Sally said pleasantly. “Very well. Will you get in?”

They got in, Sally driving. They swept in silence past the lawns, and into the wide, white highway. A watering-cart had just passed, and the air was fresh and wet. The afternoon was one of exquisite beauty. The steamer from San Francisco was just in, and the road was filled with other motor-cars and smart traps. Sally and the doctor nodded and waved to a score of friends.

“I am as sorry as you are,” said the doctor, awkwardly, after the silence had grown very long.

“Don’t mention it,” said Sally, her face flaming again. “That’s my brother’s idea of humor. I–I shall stay at the Bevises’ overnight.”

“I–why, I said I would do that!” said Dr. Bates, hastily. “I just called in to the maid, when she telephoned Bevis, and said, ‘Ask him if he can put me up overnight.’ You see, I’ve got my things.”

“Well, then, I won’t,” said Sally. Her tone was cold, but a side glance at his serious face melted her a little. “This is ALL Ferdie!” she burst out angrily.

“Too bad to make it so important,” said the doctor, regretfully.

“I don’t see why you should stay at the Bevises’,” said the girl, fretfully. “It looks very odd–when you had come to us. I–I am going to Glen Ellen early to-morrow, anyway. I would hate to have the Bevises suspect–“

“Then I will go back with you,” agreed the doctor, pleasantly.

Sally frowned. She opened her lips, but shut them without speaking. She had turned the car into a wide gateway, and a moment later they stopped at a piazza full of young people. The noisy, joyous Bevis girls and boys swarmed rapturously about them.

After an hour of laughter and shouting, Sally and the doctor rose to go, accompanied to the motor by all the young people.

“Ah, you just got in, doctor?” said gentle Mrs. Bevis, with a glance at the suit-cases.

Sally flushed, but the doctor serenely let the misunderstanding go. There was no good reason to give for the presence of two cases in the car.

“You look quite like an elopement!” said Page Bevis with a joyous shout.

“Put one of the cases in front, Bates, and rest your feet on it,” suggested the older boy, Kenneth.