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“Lina said I might introduce you. Is n’t she beautiful, though, to-night? Of course you ‘ll fall in love with her, but you must n’t try to cut me out.”

Arthur was Amy’s ideal of gentlemanly ease and polish, and she had been very proud of having so fine a city brother to introduce to the girls. Imagine her astonishment and chagrin when she saw him standing before Lina with an exaggeration of the agitated, sheepish air the girls made such fun of in their rural admirers! But if that surprised her, what was her amazement to see Lina looking equally confused, and blushing to where her neck curved beneath the lace, although the brave eyes met his fairly! A wise instinct told Amy that here was something she didn’t understand, and she had better go away, and she did.

“The melon was very good, Mr. Steele,” said Lina demurely, with a glimmer of fun in her black eyes.

“Miss Maynard, I don’t know how I shall beg pardon, or humble myself enough for my outrageous treatment of you,” burst forth Arthur. “I don’t know what I should have done if I had n’t had an opportunity for apologizing pretty soon, and now I scarcely dare look you in the face.”

His chagrin and self-reproach were genuine enough, but he might have left off that last, for he had n’t been looking anywhere else since he came into the room.

“You did shake me rather hard,” she said, with a smiling contraction of the black eyebrows.

Good heavens! had he actually shaken this divine creature,–this Cleopatra of a girl, whose queenly brow gave her hair the look of a coronet! He groaned in spirit, and looked so self-reproachful and chagrined that she laughed.

“I don’t know about forgiving you for that, but I ‘m so grateful you did n’t take me to the lock-up that I suppose I ought not to mind the shaking.”

“But, Miss Maynard, you surely don’t think I was in earnest about that?” he exclaimed, in strenuous deprecation.

“I don’t know, I ‘m sure,” she said doubtfully. “You looked as if you were capable of it.”

He was going on to protest still farther when she interrupted him, and said laughingly:–

“You take to apologizing so naturally that I ‘d nearly forgotten that it was not you but I who was the real culprit. I must really make a few excuses myself before I hear any more from you.”

And then she told him all about her brother Charley’s letter, and the spirit of emulation that had got her into trouble. It was easy enough to joke about certain aspects of the matter; but when she came to talk in plain language about her performances that night, she became so much embarrassed and stumbled so badly that Arthur felt very ill at ease.

“And when I think what would have happened if I ‘d fallen into anybody’s hands but yours, you seem almost like a deliverer.” At which Arthur had another access of humiliation to think how un-chivalrously he had treated this princess in disguise. How he would like to catch somebody else abusing her that way! And then he told her all that he had thought and felt about her during the stealing scene, and she gave her side of the drama, to their intense mutual interest.

“Is n’t it about time we were going home, Arthur?” said Amy’s voice.

He glanced up. The room was nearly empty, and the party from the Seminary were waiting for Lina.

“Miss Maynard, may I call upon you in New York during vacation?”

“I should be happy to see you.”

“Au revoir, then!”

“Au revoir!”