With the wind at their backs and the fall of snow nearly ceased, the party was not a great while in getting back to town.  The clocks were striking five when Charlotte, having put her charge to bed, and fed her with hot food and spicy, steaming drinks, administered the last pat and tuck.  “Now you’re not to open your eyes and stir until four o’clock this afternoon,” she admonished her, with decisive tenderness.  “Then if you’re very good, you may get up and dress in time for dinner.”

“I’ll be good, Mrs. Churchill,” promised Evelyn, smiling rather faintly.  She fell asleep almost before the door closed.

“You must feel a load off your shoulders,” Just observed to Jeff, as the two made ready for slumber for the brief time remaining before breakfast and the school and college work which would then claim them both.

“I do.  But if Evelyn comes out all right I shall be glad I took her.  I tell you that girl’s a mighty good sort.”

“I wish Lucy was like her.  What do you think I’m in for?  Our class reception is for Friday night, at the head-master’s house.  Doctor Agnew’s daughters have met Lucy, and I’m sure she gave ’em a hint to invite her to come with me.  Anyhow, they’ve done it, and of course I’ve got to take her.”

“Oh, well, a fellow has to be civil to a lot of girls he doesn’t particularly admire.  Lucy’s not so bad.  She’s rather pretty—­when she’s feeling amiable—­and she certainly dresses well.”

Jeff’s assertion in the matter of Lucy’s appearance was proved true.  When Just, on Friday evening, marched across to the other house, inwardly raging at his fate, he had an agreeable surprise.  As he stood by the fireplace with Charlotte, Lucy came down-stairs and floated in at the door.  Just stopped in the middle of a sentence and stared.

Being really a very pretty girl, and feeling, at the present moment, the height of fluttering expectation, her face was illumined into an attractiveness that was quite a revelation to her friends.  For the first time Lucy felt herself to be in the centre of things, and it made another girl of her.  In addition, the evening frock she wore was so charming in style and colouring that it contributed not a little to the general effect.

Altogether, Just experienced quite a revulsion of feeling in regard to the painful duty before him, and came forward to assist Lucy into her long coat with considerable alacrity and cheerfulness.

“Oh, I do love parties so,” she declared, as they hurried along the streets.  “I’m not used to being so dull as I’ve been here.  It seems to me that you have mighty few doings for young people.  I don’t call candy-pulls and fudge parties real parties.”

“Probably you won’t call this to-night a real party, then.  There’s never much that’s exciting at Doctor Agnew’s.  He always has an orchestra playing, and we walk round and talk, and usually somebody does something to entertain us—­a reading or songs.  Maybe you won’t think it’s as festive as you expect.”