"What's the difference, so long as I wanted you?"
"Of course we always do want you, Bob. We will go again next Saturday, that is, if Miss Bess can, and take our time about it," said Fred, moved to gentleness by his friend's unexpected meekness.
"Certainly I will go," said Bess heartily. "Oh, there's the bell! Rob, will you go to the door, dear?"
Rob vanished on his errand, and soon reappeared, saying disconsolately,—
"It's Mr. Washburn and that tenor, to see you. Mean old things! What did they come for?" And both the boys scowled darkly in the direction of the parlor, as Bess rose to leave them, saying laughingly,—
"Take good care of each other, and don't get into mischief. Rob, you'd better stay with Fred until they go." And taking a Jacqueminot rose from a vase on the table, she put it in the buttonhole of her new gray gown, and was gone, leaving the boys in solitary possession of the room, except for the great black cat that was slumbering peacefully on one end of the sofa.
"I want you to see Miss Carter, Muir," Mr. Washburn had said, as they were putting on their hats, preparatory to starting; "she is quite an unusual young woman. She is not only attractive and rather pretty, but she knows a thing or two; and then she has a great gift for managing small boys, and making the best of them. That little dark-eyed fellow that leads the choir is her cousin, and her influence over him and two or three of the others helps out my discipline wonderfully. I don't know how I should get along without her."
"Bring on your paragon," laughed Frank Muir. "It passes my comprehension how any woman can manage to keep small boys in order, but I'll take your word for it."
But when he rose to meet Bess as she came into the parlor, he felt at once that she might easily deserve his friend's praise, and that her pleasant, cordial manner would win the heart of the most cross-grained little urchin in existence. He was rather critical in his judgment of young women, perhaps because they usually courted his attentions in a most unblushing fashion; but this one was quite to his taste, and he settled himself for a long, enjoyable call, exerting himself to be as entertaining as possible, while the rector sat by, reflecting how well they were suited to each other.
But as Bessie sat there, talking so easily of one thing and another, with a frank pleasure in the young man's society, she gradually became conscious of the fact that her hair was fast slipping from its usual smooth coils on top of her head, and dropping towards her neck. Cautiously putting up her hand to investigate the cause, she discovered that, of the four long pins that usually held it in place, two were missing, and of course they were the more critical ones.