The veranda was prettily lighted with Japanese lanterns and shaded electric lights and Donald found chairs for Olive and himself in a corner where they could see the dancers and yet not be interrupted, for he wished to talk to her alone for a few moments, never having forgotten the impression she had made upon him at their first meeting, nor the peculiar likeness which he still saw in her to his mother.

But though Olive could not forget the Harmons, she had never really liked them nor could she forgive the hurt which Elizabeth had innocently brought upon her beloved Jack. And yet, as she knew that this attitude on her part was hardly fair, she now turned to Donald. “I hope your mother and Elizabeth are quite well,” she inquired with unconscious coldness.

Donald felt the coldness, but answered at once. “Yes, they are both unusually well these days, and if Beth could only hear that your friend Miss Ralston was going to get quite well, why she would brace up a lot. But she worries about her a great deal, so she and my mother have just come out here to Tarrydale for a short visit to my aunt. I got away from college for a few days to be with them and to see you ranch girls again,” he ended honestly.

“You are very kind,” Olive murmured, watching the passers-by for a glimpse of Jean or Frieda.

“Elizabeth and mother wish you to come over very soon and have tea with them,” the young man urged, appearing not to notice his companion’s lack of interest. “My aunt’s place is very near Primrose Hall, so you can easily walk over.”

Olive shook her head. “I don’t believe Miss Winthrop would care to have us go about the neighborhood making visits,” she announced, glad of what seemed to her a reasonable excuse.

Donald laughed, although he did feel somewhat hurt by Olive’s manner. “Don’t try to get out of coming to see us for any such cause, Miss Olive,” he protested, “for Miss Winthrop is one of my aunt’s dearest friends and she and my mother have known one another since they were girls. Why, my aunt is one of the shareholders in this school and is always offering prizes to the girls, a Shakespeare prize and perhaps some others that I don’t know about. You see, I was going to ask Miss Winthrop to bring you and Miss Bruce and Frieda over to us, as she always comes to see my aunt every week, now that Aunt Agatha has grown too old and too cranky to leave her place.”

Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing that Donald had always been their friend in all family difficulties, she was sorry to have seemed unkind. “I’ll tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with more enthusiasm, “and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will be happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you, the white house at the end of the woods with a tower at the top of it and queer gabled windows and two absurd dogs on either side the front door?”

The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you? We are dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to love them as children; I suppose a good many generations of the children in our family have had glorious rides on their backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of color sweeping over her face which even in the glow of the artificial lights Donald was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things around the walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in one corner?”

Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I am sorry I made such a silly speech. Of course your tower room isn’t like that. I think I must just have read of some such a room at the top of a house somewhere that looks like yours. Only I want to ask you a few questions.”

At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over Olive’s eyes and a voice asked:

The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for Jean had come up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil Belknap and with Gerry Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean promptly began a conversation with Donald; Gerry and her friend, after being properly introduced to the others, continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor Olive to do but to try to talk to Cecil.

Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his invitation than Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated his request to her, so that for five minutes or more they were deep in questions and answers, Jean laughingly reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to break through the wall of her admirers. When a truce was finally declared Jean smilingly accepted his invitation to tea and then turning stood for a moment with her eyes dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up a conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather had evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon even now peeping over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow hills, and still Olive was struggling bravely on without the least assistance from her superior companion, who merely stared at her without volunteering a single remark.

Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon, Olive, for having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long. Just think,” she turned to look up at the young man with her most demure expression, “I used to think the sphinx a woman, but now I am entirely convinced that he or she is a Harvard student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent and inscrutable.”

Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that this small ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to all evening on account of his sister’s affection for her, was actually poking fun at him, a Harvard Senior and heir to half a million dollars? The thing was impossible! Had she not realized that his mere presence near her had added to her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary schoolboy? Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous ideas and Cecil now hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean to a proper state of humility.

However, Jean at this moment, asking pardon for her rudeness, drew Olive aside. “Olive,” she whispered in her friend’s ear in rather anxious and annoyed tones, “have you seen anything of Frieda Ralston for the past hour? I told that young lady to come and speak to one or the other of us every half hour all this evening and she has never been near me a single time. Has she spoken to you?”

Olive laughed, shaking her head. “No, Frieda has never spoken to me,” she replied, “but once in dancing by me she did deign to smile as though we had met somewhere before. Isn’t she funny?”

But Jean was not amused. “She’s perfectly ridiculous with her grown-up airs and I wish Ruth were here to send her upstairs to bed. You know it is nearly twelve o’clock, Olive, and our dance will be over at exactly twelve and then Miss Winthrop expects each one of us to come up and personally say good-night to her. Suppose Frieda and that Johnson child should not be around, for I can’t find Mollie either. I wonder if they have gone off anywhere with that long-legged grasshopper of a boy?”

“You take Frieda too seriously, Jean,” Olive murmured, “she is sure to be in the parlor and will say good-night with the rest of us. You see, we are so used to thinking of her as a baby that we can’t get used to her independence.”

But the two ranch girls could not continue indefinitely to talk of family matters with strangers waiting near them. Anyhow, just at this moment the big clock in the hall, the same clock that Olive had listened to so long on that first night at Primrose Hall, now slowly began to boom forth the hour of midnight and at the same moment the music began to play the farewell strains of the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz.

Cecil Belknap straightway offered his arm to Olive, not that he desired her as a partner, but that he wished to punish Jean. A moment later Gerry and her friend entered the ballroom, so that naturally Donald and Jean were compelled to have this last dance together. Of course Donald would have preferred Olive, but any ranch girl was sure of being second best. However, Donald need not have worried over Jean’s being forced upon him, for no sooner had they come into the parlor with the other dancers, than two young fellows, seizing hold of Jean, declared she had promised the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz to both of them, and almost forcibly bore her away to divide the dance between them.

So with nothing better left to do, Donald stood for a moment watching Olive and Cecil Belknap. They were having a conspicuously sad time, for Cecil could not dance and so Olive was miserable. Rushing to the rescue, Donald bore his first partner away and now Cecil had the desire of his heart. For Jean’s benefit he spent the closing moments of the evening in the society of her rival, Winifred Graham. However, the young man would have been better satisfied could he have known whether or not the western girl noticed his desertion. His sister had asked him to be nice to Jean in order that the mere influence of his presence near her might induce her classmates to vote for her, and yet she had not appeared particularly grateful. It is the old story with a girl or a woman. Strange, but she never seems to care for a man’s attention when he makes a martyr of himself for her sake!

However, in these last few minutes of the dance the older ranch girls were concerned only with thoughts of Frieda. Nowhere about the great room could she be seen, not even after the young men guests had gone away and the girls had formed in line to say good-night to Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt. Olive and Jean were separated by several students and yet the same questions traveled from one face to the other. “Suppose Miss Winthrop asks us what has become of Frieda, what must we say, and what will she do if, after trusting Frieda and Mollie, they have gotten into some kind of mischief?”

Two steps at a time, the two girls, when their own good-nights had been said and no questions asked, rushed upstairs to their bedrooms. But outside Jean’s door Olive suddenly stopped and laughed. “Frieda is such a baby, she has only gone upstairs to bed. Of course she has said good-night long ago.”

Cautiously they thrust open the door; a dim light was burning inside the room and a maid had turned down Frieda’s bed, but that young lady was not in it, neither was there any sign of her presence about the place.

Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room. “Lucy says Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported immediately, “so what on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has charge of our floor to-night and will be around in a few minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then if Frieda isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep Frieda a little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid any attention to her, she was both angry and frightened.

“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested faintly, knowing that she could never get downstairs and back again before Miss Sterne’s appearance and feeling that the vanishment of two girls might be even more conspicuous and draw greater wrath down upon their heads than the disappearance of one.

“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see you prowling around and would have to know the reason why, so that wouldn’t help the present situation,” Jean answered. “Surely Frieda will be here in a few minutes.” All up and down the hall the opening and shutting of bedroom doors could now be heard and the voices of the other girls bidding Miss Sterne and each other good-night.