“‘I think it’s a good one,’ I tells her, ’but remember there are risks.  For one thing, you know how popular you have always been with all the girls.  Well, after this day none of ’em will hardly speak to you because of your low-lifed, deceitful game, and the things they’ll say of you—­such things as only woman can say of woman!’

“‘I shall not count the cost,’ says she firmly.  ’And now I must hurry down for that sport bloose—­blue-striped, you said?’

“‘Something on that order,’ I says, ’that fits only too well.  You can do almost anything you want to with your neck and arms, but remember strictly—­a skirt is your one and only Non Plush Ultra.’

“So I went home all flushed and eager, thinking joyously how little men—­the poor dubs—­ever suspect how it’s put over on ’em, and the next day, which was Friday, I thought of a few more underhand things she could do.  So when she run in to see me that afternoon, the excitement of the chase in her eye, she wanted I should go along on this picnic.  I says yes, I will, being that excited myself and wanting to see really if I was a double-faced genius or wasn’t I?  Henrietta Price couldn’t go on account of being still lame from her ride of a week ago, so I could go as chaperone, and anyway I knew the dear girls would all be glad to have me because I would look so different from them—­like a genial old ranch foreman going out on rodeo—­and the boys was always glad to see me along anyway.  ‘I’ll be there,’ I says to Hetty.  ’And here—­don’t forget at all times to-morrow to carry this little real lace handkerchief I’m giving you.’

“I was at the meeting-place next morning at nine.  None of the other girls was on time, of course, but that was just as well, because Aggie Tuttle had got her father to come down to the sale yard to pack a mule with the hampers of lunch.  Jeff Tuttle is a good packer all right, but too inflamed in the case of a mule, which he hates.  They always know up and down that street when he’s packing one; ladies drag their children by as fast as they can.  But Jeff had the hitch all throwed before any of the girls showed up, and all began in a lovely manner, the crowd of about fifteen getting off not more than an hour late; Mr. Burchell in the lead and a bevy of these jolly young rascals in their Non Plush Ultras riding herd on him.

“Every girl cast cordial glances of pity at poor Hetty when she showed up in her neat skirt and silly tan pumps with the ridiculous silk stockings and the close-fitting blue-striped thing, free at the neck, and her pretty hair all neated under the La Parisienne cow-girl hat.  Oh, they felt kinder than ever before to poor old Hetty when they saw her as little daring as that, cheering her with a hearty uproar, slapping their Non Plush Ultras with their caps or gloves, and then giggling confidentially to one another.  Hetty accepted their applause with what they call a pretty show of confusion and gored her horse with her heel on the off side so it looked as if the vicious brute was running away and she might fall off any minute, but somehow she didn’t, and got him soothed with frightened words and by taking the hidden heel out of his slats—­though not until Mr. D. had noticed her good and then looked again once or twice.