“Here she is!” announced Belle, and the rest crowded around the window.

“There’s Miss Genevieve,” whispered Charlotte; “girls, she is coming in!”

The Whittredge carriage had stopped before the gate and Miss Genevieve, a marvel of grace in soft chiffons that rippled and curled about her slender height and emphasized the fairness of her skin, was actually escorting her niece to the door.

“Isn’t she lovely?” sighed Charlotte, in an ecstasy.

“Not so sweet as Miss Celia,” said loyal Belle.

Miss Betty met them on the porch, while her guests in the parlor craned their necks to catch a glimpse, through the open door, of the new arrivals.  The languid sweetness of Miss Genevieve’s tone floated in above Miss Betty’s crisper utterance.

“Mamma is just as usual, thank you.  Yes, it was very kind of you to ask her; I have no doubt she finds it dull.  Yes, we expect Allan in a week or two, but there is no counting on him.”

So absorbed were the listeners, they did not begin their retreat soon enough, and their hostess, ushering Rosalind in, encountered a scene of confusion.  Katherine in the excitement fell backward over a footstool and was rescued, flushed and shamefaced, by Jack Parton.  Charlotte smoothed her dress and tried to look dignified.  Belle and Maurice were in fits of laughter.

Miss Betty surveyed them in surprise.  Rosalind stood beside her, and the girls at once noted that she wore pink.

“Is anything the matter?” asked Miss Betty, observing Katherine’s flushed face.  “I want to introduce Rosalind Whittredge to you.  Rosalind, this is Charlotte Ellis, and Katherine Roberts, and Belle Parton—­”

Still laughing, Belle held out her hand.  “We were peeping at you,” she said.

“Didn’t you know I was coming in?” Rosalind asked, a gleam of fun in her own eyes.

“We wanted to see Miss Genevieve,” added Belle.

As Miss Betty proceeded to name the boys, Rosalind said, “Oh, I know Maurice,” quite as if he were an old friend; and she added, standing beside him, “I am so much obliged to you for bringing my book home.”

“Does Maurice know her?” whispered Belle.

Katherine nodded, although she had had her doubts until this minute.

Maurice was agreeably conscious of Belle’s eyes as he talked to Rosalind.  He was not at all unwilling to have the distinction of being the only one to know the new-comer.

“I read the story,” he said.  “I did not know till after you had gone that it was one of Shakespeare’s plays.  We read Julius Caesar at school last winter.”

“I know that too,” Rosalind answered.  I have Lamb’s stories.  Cousin Louis used to read them to me, and then from the real plays, but I like the story of the Forest best.”

“Dear me! they are talking about Shakespeare,” Belle exclaimed.

Rosalind looked across the room at her, and smiled in a way that seemed an invitation.