“I have exhausted them, unless it is to be a musicale.”

“No.  That’s what we are going to have to-morrow ourselves.  I sing, you know.”

“Do you?  Well, a garden party perhaps?”

“That’s what the Ripleys are going to have Thursday.”

“Then, so far as I can see, there is nothing left for it to be except a failure,” said De Forest, lifting his arms off the gate.  “And, in view of so much coming dissipation, I feel constrained to retire and seek a little preparatory repose.  Good-morning, Miss Masters.”

“How hateful not to introduce him, Bell!  And when he distinctly asked you to!  How abominably mean of you!  How selfish, how horrid! I wouldn’t have done so,” broke out in an indignant chorus, as the gentleman walked off.

“Do you think I would be such a goose as to go shares in the handsomest man Joppa ever laid eyes on, so long as I can keep him to myself?” said Bell, honestly.  “Fish for yourselves, girls.  The sea is open to all, and you may each land another as good.”

Phebe’s lip curled very disdainfully.  What a fuss to make over a man, and how Bell had changed in the last few years!

“Well, keep him, if you can, but I’ll be even with you yet,” said Amy, with an ominous smile.  “And what luck!  Here comes Mr. Moulton now, and I know him and you don’t, and I’ll pay you off on the spot.  Good-morning, Mr. Moulton.”

The young gentleman stopped, in his turn, at the gate as Amy spoke to him.

“Oh, Miss Duckworth, I was on my way to call on you.”

“I will go home with you in a minute,” said Amy, graciously.  “I wouldn’t miss your call for any thing.  But first let me introduce you to my friends.  Miss Mudge, Mr. Moulton,—­Miss Lane, the Misses Dexter.  You will meet us all again at Mrs. Upjohn’s.  Of course, you are going?”

“Certainly, now I am told that I shall meet you there, and if you will promise that I shan’t be called upon to do any thing remarkable.  I have heard alarming reports.”

“That is out of anyone’s power to promise,” replied Miss Duckworth.  “No genius is safe from her.”

“Amy, love,” broke in Bell, with infinite gentleness of tone and manner, “you have forgotten to present your friend to me, and I cannot be so impolite as to leave him standing outside my own gate.  I am Miss Masters, Mr. Moulton.  Pray excuse the informality, and come in to share our lemonade.”

Mr. Moulton, nothing loath, accordingly came in, took his glass, and sat himself just where Bell directed, on a step at her feet.  Amy colored, and there was a subdued titter somewhere in the background, and Bell calmly resumed the reins of the conversation.  “No, there is no knowing what we shall be put through this afternoon.  One time when Mrs. Upjohn had got us all safely inside her doors, she divided us smartly into two classes, set herself in the middle, and announced that we were there for a spelling bee.  We shouldn’t say we hadn’t learned something at her house.  And upon my word we did learn something.  Never before or since have I heard such merciless words as she dealt us out.  My hair stands on end still when I recollect the horrors I underwent that day.”