Faster and faster she went until, as she came around a corner, she almost collided with someone hastening up the street. A little hot hand clutched her arm—
"Oh, Lol, is it you? I came back to make up! Someway I can't bear to be on the outs with you!"
Ivy was breathless and perspiring and her hat was blown all to one side.
Laura reached over and set it straight carefully, almost caressingly.
"Oh, Ivy-vine, neither can I—Isn't it funny? Shall we go on?"
Laughing softly and blinking back the tears of which they were half ashamed, they continued up the street, happy in the reconciliation, so facile and so complete in childhood, when bygones are bygones, and there is no danger of ghosts, once laid, ever rising up again to give added rancor to future disagreements.
What a beautiful day it was and how the sun shone and how blissfully they drank in the air!
"Oh, Lol, see, there's a wagon in front of Jarrett's Hall! I do believe those men belong to the show!" cried Ivy.
"Let's go up and look round," proposed Laura.
They had reached a long building fronting on Main Street, the first story of which was occupied by a half dozen stores. They climbed a covered stairway that led to the second story. At the top of the "hall stairs," as they were called, was the main entrance to the hall which occupied the second story of the edifice. These stairs also opened upon a sort of court, from which a broad flight of stone steps led to an upper street.