“Now you’ve hit it,” he answered, with a slight flush.  “I was so undecided that I drove by every door, and was not tied at all.”

Belle “made eyes” at Mildred, as much as to say, “It’s you who are distracting him.”

“Next time,” Sue continued, “I think it would be well to make up your mind before Sunday morning.”

“My mind is made up,” replied Roger—­Belle looked at Mildred with an expression of horror, to her intense annoyance—­“I shall trouble no one,” he added, quietly.

Belle now gave such a great sigh of relief that he turned upon her too swift a glance to leave time for disguise.  He smiled a little bitterly, and then began talking in an off-hand way to Mr. Jocelyn about the hotel a few miles distant, saying that it had filled up very rapidly of late.  As they rose from the table he remarked, hesitatingly, “My horse and wagon are at your service this afternoon or evening if you would like to take a drive.”

Mr. Jocelyn was about to accept, but Mildred trod significantly on his foot.  Therefore he thanked Roger cordially, and said he would spend a quiet day with his family.

“I don’t wish to be under the slightest obligations to him,” explained Mildred when they were alone; “and Belle,” she warned, “you must stop your nonsense at once.  I won’t endure another trace of it.”

“Oh, indeed!  I didn’t know you were so touchy about him,” cried the girl.  “Is it for his sake or your own that you are so careful?  You’re stupid not to let him amuse you, since you’ve spoiled him for me.”

Her sister made no reply, but gave the giddy child a glance that quieted her at once.  When Mildred was aroused her power over others was difficult to explain, for, gentle as she was, her will at times seemed irresistible.

Roger did not need to be told in so many words that his overtures of “friendship” had been practically declined.  Her tones, her polite but distant manner revealed the truth clearly.  He was sorely wounded, but, so far from being disheartened, his purpose to win her recognition was only intensified.

“I can at least compel her respect and prove myself her equal,” he thought, and instead of lounging or sleeping away the afternoon, as had been his custom, he took a book and read steadily for several hours.  At last he left his room to aid his father in the evening labors of the farm-yard, and in doing so would have to pass near Mr. Jocelyn, who, with his family, was seated under a wide-spreading tree.  The gentleman evidently was in a very genial mood; he was caressing his children, flattering his wife and Mildred, and rallying Belle after her own frolicsome humor.  Roger thought, as he looked at them a few moments through the kitchen window, that he had never seen a happier family, and with a sigh wished that it was his privilege to join them without being thought an intruder.  Mildred’s reserve, however, formed an impassable barrier, and he was hastening