“If that is the case I’d like you to show it by behaving,” said Celia, as she left the room.

When Belle told at home about the day’s occurrences, her father laughed.

“I shall tell Mrs. Graham she must introduce manual training.  ’Satan finds some mischief still,’ you see.  Maybe Belle will turn out a famous sculptor.”

“At any rate, colonel, you ought not to encourage her in such pranks,” Mrs. Parton remarked, shaking her head at her husband, who never saw anything to criticise in the one little daughter among his five boys.

CHAPTER FIFTH.

Maurice.

“The stubbornness of fortune.”

It was the first of the month, and a steady stream of people passed in and out of the bank.  Maurice sat on the steps leading up to the private entrance, and with few exceptions each new-comer had a pleasant greeting or kindly inquiry for him.

Miss Betty Bishop rustling out, bank book in hand, called, “How are you, Maurice?  When are you and Katherine coming to take tea with me?  Let me know and I’ll have waffles.”

The cabinet-maker came to the foot of the steps to ask about the lame knee, and shook his head in sympathy with Maurice’s doleful face.

Colonel Parton, a tall, gray-mustached man, accompanied by two hunting dogs, hailed him:  “Not going with the boys?  Ah, I forgot your knee.  Too bad!  Jack’s got the dandiest new fishing-rod you ever saw.”

“As if I didn’t know it,” growled Maurice, us the colonel entered the bank.

The next person to accost him was Miss Celia Fair.  She hadn’t any bank business, but seeing Maurice as she passed, stopped to speak to him.  She sat down beside him and tried in her pretty, soft way to cheer him.

“Don’t look so gloomy, dear; you know if you are careful you will soon be all right again,” she said.

At this Maurice poured forth all his disappointment at not being able to go with the Parton boys on their excursion down the bay.

“I am just as sorry for you as I can be,” said Celia, clasping her hands in her lap—­such slender hands—­and looking far away as if she were tired of everything near by.  It was only for a moment, then she said with a little laugh, “You can’t possibly understand, Maurice, but I shouldn’t mind a sprained knee in the least; I think I could even enjoy it, if I hadn’t any more responsibility than you have.”

“But you don’t care to go fishing,” he suggested.

“Oh, yes, I do; I like to fish.”  With a smile she said good-by, and went away.

After this Maurice settled down into deeper despondency than before.  He had refused an invitation to drive, hid treated with bitter scorn Katherine’s suggestion that he might like to go out to the creek with her and Blossom.  “You could ride in the stage, you know, and have to walk only the least little bit,” she said.