Part 12

"It can't be flowers or candy. He must be starting something new."

"I don't care what it is!" Mae viciously tossed the parcel into the wastebasket.

Irene McCullough fished it out and cut the string.

"Oh, Mae, it's his photograph!" she squealed. "And he's per-fect-ly beau-ti-ful!"

"Did you ever see such eyes!"

"Does he curl his mustache, or it is natural?"

"Why didn't you tell us he had a dimple in his chin?"

"Does he always wear those clothes?"

Mae was divided between curiosity and anger. She snatched the photograph away, cast one glance at the languishing brown eyes, and tumbled it, face downward, into a bureau drawer.

"Don't ever mention his name to me again!" she commanded, as, with compressed lips, she commenced brushing her hair for dinner.

On the next Friday afternoon--shopping day in the village--Patty and Conny and Priscilla dropped in at the florist's to pay a bill.

"Two bunches of sunflowers, one dollar," the man had just announced in ringing tones from the rear of the store, when a step sounded behind them, and they faced about to find Mae Mertelle Van Arsdale, bent on a similar errand.

"Oh!" said Mae, fiercely, "I might have known it was you three."

She stared for a moment in silence, then she dropped into a rustic seat and buried her head on the counter. She had shed so many tears of late that they flowed automatically.

"I suppose," she sobbed, "you'll tell the whole school, and everybody will laugh and--and--"

The three regarded her with unbending mien. They were not to be moved by a few tears.

"You said that Rosalie was a silly little goose to make such a fuss over nothing," Priscilla reminded her.

"And at least he was a live man," said Patty, "even if he did have a crooked nose."

"Do you still think she was a silly goose?" Conny inquired.

"N--no!"

"Don't you think you've been a great deal more silly?"

"Y--yes."

"And will you apologize to Rosalie?"

"No!"

"It will make quite a funny story," Patty ruminated, "the way we'll tell it."

"I think you're perfectly horrid!"

"Will you apologize to Rosalie?" Priscilla asked again.

"Yes--if you'll promise not to tell."