A Book o' Nine Tales.

“John,” his wife said abruptly, “John, I have loved you from the first moment I saw you; I love you now, and I shall love you to all eternity. Whatever happens, remember that and believe it.”

“I have never doubted that you love me,” he answered, gathering her into his arms; “how else could it be that you could have made me so utterly happy?”

She clung to him passionately a moment. Then with an evident effort at self-control, she kissed his lips fervently, disengaged herself from his embrace, and turned away.

“Good-night, dear,” she said.

Then upon the threshold of Mistress Henshaw’s chamber she paused and looked back, tears shining in her beautiful dark eyes.

“Good-night,” she repeated; “good-night.”

V

It was somewhat past his usual hour of rising when John Friendleton next morning came downstairs. The storm was over, but everywhere had it left its traces in broken boughs, overturned fences, and dilapidated chimneys, so that as he looked from the window, John could see on all sides the evidences of its violence.

The house was strangely quiet, and he looked about him with the impatience of a lover for his wife, that she might chase away the unaccustomed sombreness which seemed to have descended upon the place.

“Dinah,” he asked, “has not your mistress risen?”

The mute regarded him with a strange appearance of wildness and terror, but she replied by a shake of the head, – instantly hurrying out of the room as if in fear.

John looked after her an instant in bewilderment, not understanding her odd manner; and then approaching the door of the room occupied by his wife, he tapped softly.

There was no response.

He tapped again somewhat more loudly. Still there was no reply. A third time he rapped, now with a heavy hand. All within was as silent as the grave.

Startled by he knew not what fear, with a sudden impulse he set his strong shoulder to the door, and strained until with a crash it flew open.

The heavy curtains were undrawn, and a grey gloom filled the chamber. A fearful silence followed the crash of the breaking lock, and met him like a palpable terror. He saw Rose lying on the bed, her face buried in the pillows; and by some fantastic jugglery, the light from the open door, as it fell upon her hair, – those abundant tresses whose rich, dark glory he so loved, – seemed to silver them to the whiteness of hoary age.

“Rose!” he cried, starting forward to seize her hand which lay upon the coverlid.

The hand was cold with a chill which smote him to the very heart.

“Rose! Sweetheart!” he cried in a piercing voice, bending over and tenderly turning her dear face up to the light.

What horrible mockery confronted him? He started back like one stung by a serpent!

Along the pillow lay a crushed and withered tuberose, and he looked upon the face, ghastly in death, and old and haggard and wrinkled – of Mistress Henshaw.

Interlude Second.
AN EVENING AT WHIST

[The scene is the parlor of a modern house, much adorned, and furnished with a wealth of bric-a-brac, which renders getting about a most difficult and delicate operation, unless one is wholly regardless of the consequences to the innumerable ornaments. Mrs. Greeleigh Vaughn, a corpulent and well-preserved widow, who passes for forty, and is not less, has just seated herself at the whist-table, with her daughter and two guests. One of these, Mr. Amptill Talbot, is one of those young men whose wits seem to be in some mysterious fashion closely connected with the parting of their hair exactly in the middle; the other is a handsome and keen-eyed gentleman of middle age, who answers to the name Colonel Graham.]

Mrs. Vaughn. I am so glad you could and would come, Colonel Graham. Now we shall have a delightful evening at whist. You are such a superb player that I am sure I shall learn more about the game by playing with you a single evening than I should by studying the books for a year.

Colonel Graham. You are too good. I make not the slightest pretence of —

Mrs. V. Oh, of course not. You are too modest; but everybody says that you are a wonderful player. I only hope you won’t be too hard on me if I make a mistake.

Miss Vaughn. Oh, I am so glad mamma is your partner, Colonel Graham. I should be frightened to death if I had to play with you. Mr. Talbot will be a good deal more merciful, I am sure.

Mr. Talbot. Anything you do is sure to be right, Miss Vaughn. If you can put up with me, I am sure I can afford to overlook any mistakes you make. I play whist so seldom that I am all out of practice.

Miss V. (dealing). Oh, I just never play, only when I have to make up the table. I have so many things on hand. Why weren’t you at the Wentworths’ last night, Mr. Talbot?

Mr. T. I was out of town. I think you gave yourself two cards that time.

Miss V. Oh, dear! Have I made a misdeal? I wish you’d count your cards.

Colonel G. You are right. The next card is mine.

Miss V. Thank you.

Mrs. V. That came out all right.

Colonel G. But the trump is not turned.

Miss V. Oh, which was the last card? I am sure I don’t know; I’ve got them all mixed up now.

Mrs. V. Well, never mind. Let me draw one. That will do just as well.

Mr. T. Diamonds? Can’t you draw again? I haven’t —

Miss V. I don’t think it was diamonds. I am almost sure it was spades.

Mrs. V. No, diamonds suits me, and of course you can’t change it now; can she, Colonel Graham?

Colonel G. It isn’t customary, I believe, unless we are to play Auction Pitch, and bid for the trump.

Miss V. Oh, now you are going to be sarcastic! I don’t think that’s fair.

Mrs. V. Do you put your trumps at one end of your hand, Colonel Graham?

Colonel G. No, I do not, but some people find it a convenience.

Mr. T. Is it my lead?

Colonel G. No, it is my partner’s.

Mrs. V. Oh, is it my lead? I’m sure I don’t know what to play. You always lead from your long suit, don’t you? There, I hope that queen will be good.

Mr. T. No, it won’t, for I have the ace.

Mrs. V. Oh, you mean man! Partner, can’t you trump that?

Colonel G. I have suit.

Miss V. There, I have got to put the king on, and I think it is mean.

Mr. T. I am awfully sorry. If I’d only known —

Miss V. I shook my head at you, but you wouldn’t look up.

Mrs. V. That wasn’t fair, and you deserve to be beaten. Now my jack is good, any way.

Mr. T. It isn’t your lead. I took the trick.

Mrs. V. Oh, I beg pardon.

Miss V. I would have trumped it, any way.

Mr. T. I wish I knew what you have.

Miss V. I wish I could tell you. Don’t make it too dark.

Mr. T. Then I’ll lead diamonds.

Miss V. That’s just right.

Mrs. V. Diamonds are trumps.

Miss V. Oh, are they? Oh, that’s too bad. I didn’t want trumps led.

Mr. T. But you said – Why, can’t you go over Colonel Graham’s nine-spot?

Miss V. I made a mistake. I meant to play the ten.

Mrs. V. Shall I put on a small one or a high one, Colonel Graham?

Colonel G. The trick is ours as it lies.

Mrs. V. Then if I put on a high one it will get it out of the way, so you’ll know what to do next time.

Mr. T. Why, you’ve thrown away the king of trumps!

Mrs. V. Wasn’t that right?

Miss V. Why, of course not, mamma. You ought to have put on either the ace or a low one.

Colonel G. It is your lead, Mrs. Vaughn.

Mrs. V. She says she’ll trump hearts, and I can’t play my knave. I’ll try spades. I hope you’ll take it.

Mr. T. And he did. How nice to have a partner do just what you tell him to.

Miss V. That means that I don’t.

Mr. T. You are always satisfactory, whatever you do.

Miss V. What was led? Clubs? Are clubs trumps?

Colonel G. No; diamonds.

Miss V. Second hand low. I know that, at any rate, so there’s a two-spot.

Mr. T. Your mother has taken it with the seven.

Miss V. Oh, and I had the ace, king, and queen. Ought I to have played one of those?

Colonel G. If you tell us your hand you must expect us to play to it.

Miss V. I didn’t mean to tell.

Mrs. V. (leading spades). That was your suit, wasn’t it?

Mr. T. But I hold the ace.

Miss V. It was your own lead, mamma. Any way, I’ll trump it.

Mr. T. Why, you’ve trumped my ace.

Miss V. Oh, did I? I didn’t mean to. Can’t I take it back?

Colonel G. It is a little late, but still —

Miss V. Oh, well, never mind. Let it go. I have the king, any way (leading it).

Colonel G. But you just trumped a spade.

Mrs. V. A revoke! That gives us three points.

Miss V. Oh, it doesn’t either! I didn’t see that king at all when I trumped, and that was the only spade I had. I’ll change it on the last trick, and then it will be all right.

Mrs. V. You can’t do that; can she, Colonel Graham?

Colonel G. It isn’t customary.

Mr. T. Oh, who wants to play the stiff club rules? I don’t; there isn’t any fun in whist if you are going to be so particular.

Miss V. Whose lead is it now?

Colonel G. If it isn’t yours it must be Mr. Talbot’s, as you decide about that trick.

Mr. T. Then I’ll lead a spade, and you can trump it.

Miss V. There, that’s better than having that trump wasted on your ace.

Mrs. V. Did you ever play Stop? We played it last summer at Bar Harbor. It’s a Western game, and you have chips, just like poker; and then you stop it if you have the stop cards; and sometimes you’ll have the meanest little cards left in your hands, and if it is the ace of diamonds you have to pay five chips for it, or the king, or the queen, or the knave, or the ten; not so much, of course, but it all counts up awfully fast.

Mr. T. Why, that is ever so much like Sixty-six. Do you remember the time we tried to play Sixty-six on the Bar Harbor boat, Miss Vaughn?

Miss V. Oh, yes; and Ethel Mott was such fun. She just would cheat, and there was no stopping her.

Colonel G. It is your lead, Miss Vaughn.

Mrs. V. Oh, just wait a moment. I want to know if fourth best has anything to do with playing fourth hand?

Colonel G. Nothing whatever.

Mr. T. Oh, fourth best is one of those things they’ve put in to make whist scientific. For my part, I don’t think there’s any fun —

Miss V. That’s just what I say. When I play whist I want to have a good time, and not feel as if I were going through an examination at a scientific school. Oh, did you know we are going to have a whist figure at Janet Graham’s german, Mr. Talbot? Won’t that be fun?

Mr. T. I am sure then that you’ll be trump.

Miss V. Thank you.

Mrs. V. How pretty!

Colonel G. It is your lead, Miss Vaughn.

Miss V. Why, did I take the last trick? What shall I – oh, I know, – the ace of clubs.

Mrs. V. The two-spot of diamonds ought to be good for that.

Miss V. How horrid! Now the rest of my clubs aren’t any good. Well, any way, I can throw them away.

Mrs. V. Have hearts been led?

Mr. T. I’m sure I can’t remember.

Miss V. (examining tricks). Yes, here’s one heart trick.

Mrs. V. Well, I must lead it, and I’m sure I don’t remember about it at all. I’ll lead a small one. Was that right, Colonel Graham?

Colonel G. You might have led your knave.

Mrs. V. Why, how did you know I had the knave. I declare, it’s like witchcraft, the way you keep run of the cards. I suppose you know where every card is. Who took that?

Colonel G. I did.

Mr. T. I ought to have trumped that, but I do hate to trump second hand.

Colonel G. But you played suit.

Mr. T. So I did. I forgot that.

Colonel G. (showing hand). The rest of the tricks are mine.

Miss V. Why, I have the king and queen of clubs, and you haven’t a club in your hand.

Colonel G. That is why the tricks are mine. I can keep the lead to the end. I am very sorry, Mrs. Vaughn; but I am suddenly attacked with a nervous headache, so that I cannot possibly go on playing. I shall have to ask to be excused.

Mrs. V. Oh, don’t break up the game when we are getting along so well.

Colonel G. I am very sorry; but I must go. I have enjoyed the game extremely.

Mr. T. Are you out?

Colonel G. Yes.

Mrs. V. I’m sure it was all owing to you.

Colonel G. It was all owing to the fall of the cards. I haven’t done anything.

Miss V. I’m sure we didn’t have anything on our side at all. I hate whist anyway; you have to be so quiet, and study on it so.

Mr. T. Yes, I think it’s awfully hard work.

Colonel G. Oh, you’ll have better luck next time. Good-by; don’t rise.

[And the Colonel goes to the club to relieve his mind by a quantity of vigorous expletives, and then to settle down to an evening of what he calls real whist.]

Tale the Third.
SAUCY BETTY MORK

I

“But, Miss Bessie – ”

“I have told you a dozen times, Mr. Granton, that my name is not Bessie. I abhor that final ie; and more than that, I was christened Betty, – plain Betty, – and Betty I will be.”

“Miss Betty, then, if that suits you; though why you should be so particular about that old-fashioned name, I’m sure I can’t conceive.”

“In the first place, it is my name,” Betty replied, bending upon him a glance at once bewitching and tantalizing; “that ought to count for something; and in the second place, my family name isn’t one that lends itself to soft prefixes. Besides all which, there has been a Betty Mork from time immemorial; and I shall never be one to spoil the line by changing my name.”

“What?” Mr. Granton demanded mischievously. “Never change it? Are you vowed to eternal single blessedness, then, or shall you imitate the women’s-rights women, who – ”

“It is really none of your affair what I intend to do,” returned she, bridling; “only, to go back to what we started on, I do intend to play in the tournament with Frank Bradford. I am not in the habit of breaking my promises.”

The pair walked along the shady country road without speaking for a moment or two, the young man inclined to be sulky, his companion saucy and good-natured. The dropping sunshine, falling through the gently waving elm-boughs, struck golden lights out of Miss Mork’s abundant chestnut hair, – her one beauty, it amused her to call it, although the smile which brought out her dimples and the lustre of her eyes contradicted the words even while they were being spoken. Young Granton was fully alive to the attractiveness of the lithe figure beside him; indeed, for his own peace of mind, far too keenly. He was aware, too, of the difficulty of managing the wilful beauty, whose independence was sufficiently understood by all the summer idlers at Maugus.

“But you certainly knew I expected you to play in the tournament with me,” he began again, returning to the attack.

“It isn’t modest for a girl ever to know what a man expects of her until she’s told,” Betty replied demurely, “even in tennis. And besides, it was presumptuous for you to be so royally certain of my acquiescence in whatever you deigned to plan.”

“I’ll serve a cut so that you’ll never be able to return it,” threatened he.

“I can serve a cut myself,” she retorted, with an accent which seemed to indicate a double significance in the words.

“Confound it!” he said, incisively, with sudden and inconsistent change of base, “it is perfect folly letting ladies into a tournament anyway. Who wants them? They always make trouble.”

“I understood that you wanted one,” Betty answered, unmoved, observing the fringe of her parasol with great apparent interest; “but of course I knew your invitation was not to be taken too seriously.”

“Oh, bother!” the young man cried, slashing viciously at the head of a late-blooming daisy. “Why do you always insist on quarrelling with me?”

“Are we really quarrelling?” she laughed back with her most exasperating lightness of manner. “How delightful! If there is one thing that I enjoy more than I do tennis, it is a good quarrel.”

“Tennis!” Granton retorted, the last shreds of his patience giving way. “It must be allowed that you can quarrel better than you can play. No girl,” he went on, with increasing acerbity, “can ever really play tennis: she only plays at playing it; and it spoils any man’s game to play with her. For my part, I cannot see why they are to be admitted to the tournament at all.”

“Merci!” exclaimed Mistress Betty, stopping in the sun-dappled way to make him a profound courtesy. “Now I know what your true sentiments are, and how much your invitation was worth. Thank you for nothing, Mr. Nat Granton. I wish you luck of your partner, – when you get one. It is a cruel shame that by the rules of the tournament it must be a girl!”

And before Granton was able to reply or knew what she intended, pretty Miss Mork, with her tripping gait, her bright eyes, ugly name, and all, had whisked through a turnstile and was half-way across the lawn of the cottage where her particular bosom-friend Miss Dora Mosely was spending the summer.

II

While Granton continued his perturbed way down the lovely village street to the Elm House, which for the time being was the home of a pleasant colony of summer idlers seeking rest and diversion in Maugus, Miss Betty flitted lightly over the lawn and joined her friend, whom she found reposing in a hammock swung under the cool veranda.

“Oh, Dolly,” was her breathless salutation, “I’ve got the awfullest thing to do! But I’ll do it, or perish in the attempt!”

“Halloo, Betty!” was Miss Mosely’s response and greeting; “how like a whirlwind you are! What is the matter? What have you got to do?”

“Beat Mr. Granton at tennis in the tournament.”

“You and Mr. Bradford, you mean?”

“No; I mean all by myself, – in a single. I sha’n’t play in the double at all, if I can get out of it without sneaking.”

“What in the world has happened to bring you to this desperate frame of mind?”

“Well, Dolly, the fact is, Mr. Granton has been making himself particularly odious because I wouldn’t throw over Frank Bradford to play with him, and – ”

“I told you,” her friend interrupted judicially, examining the toe of her slipper with much interest and satisfaction, “that you’d be sorry you agreed to play with Frank.”

“But I’m not sorry,” protested the other, with spirit. “Do you think I’m so bound up in Nat Granton that I can’t get on without him? If he wanted me to play with him why didn’t he ask me, instead of taking it for granted, in that insufferably conceited way of his, that I’d stand about and wait on his lordship’s leisure? Oh, I’ll pay him off! I shall go over to grandmother’s every blessed day from now until the tournament and practise, so as to take down his top-loftical airs.”

At which exhibition of spite and determination Miss Mosely fell to laughing, and said Betty’s manner suggested pickled limes, which in turn reminded her of the chocolate-creams they had at boarding-school, and that brought to mind some particularly delicious marshmallows which had been saved until Betty should come over; and she added that it would be a very good plan to go into the house and devour them.

Over the flabby and inane confection with which the two friends regaled themselves, it was arranged that Dora should devote herself with Machiavelian shrewdness to bringing about a reconciliation between Frank Bradford and his betrothed, Flora Sturtevant, whose quarrel had led to the invitation which had involved Betty in her present difficulties. In the meantime, Mistress Mork was to give herself with great assiduity to the practice of cutting, volleying, and such devices of skill or cunning as would make possible the realization of her bold plan of conquering Mr. Granton in the tennis tournament, over which all the young people were just then much excited.

These conclusions were not reached without much digression, circumlocution, and irrelevant discourse upon various matters, with a good deal of consideration of the dress which would be both convenient and becoming for the important games.

“I have almost a mind to try a divided skirt,” Betty said thoughtfully. “George saw one at a tournament in England, and it could be fixed so as not – Oh, Dora, if George were only here! He knows all the new English rules and cuts, and all sorts of quirks. Oh, why did you have to quarrel with him just now? Now I shall lose my tennis just because you drove him away from Maugus.”

“Why, Betty Mork! You said yourself you wouldn’t stand his lordly ways; you know you did.”

“Of course,” returned her friend illogically; “but we both agreed that you’d have to make up with him some time; and I didn’t know then that I should want him.”

“But what could I do?” demanded Dora, divided between a sense of being deserted by her friend and a desire to have difficulties smoothed over. “Any girl with decent pride would have had to send George away. You know how I hated to do it.”

“But you might send for him now.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. That would be too awfully humiliating. I wonder you can propose it.”

“Men are so dreadful,” sighed Betty.

The two forlorn victims of masculine perversity pensively ate marshmallows in silence for a moment, revolving, no doubt, the most profound reflections upon the vanity of human affairs.

“I’ll tell you what I will do,” Betty said at length, reflectively. “I’ll write to George and make him visit grandmother. He hasn’t been there for a year, to stay; and, as grandmother says, she ‘admires to have him.’ I’ll tell him if he’ll stay there, out of sight, I think I can fix things with you.”

“Oh, you delicious, darling hypocrite!” exclaimed her friend, embracing her rapturously. “You are a perfect treasure, Bet! I’ll do anything to help you, – anything. I’ve been perfectly wretched ever since George went away; but of course I couldn’t say so, if I’d died.”

III

“So you are not going to play with Bradford, after all?” Nat Granton said, flinging himself on the turf at Miss Mork’s feet as she sat watching the tennis-players practising for the tournament.

“No,” she answered. “He and Flora have recovered from their temporary alienation, and I was generous and took myself out of the way.”

“Will you play with me?”

“Thank you; no. I shall not go into any team; and in any case, I know too well your sentiments on the subject of girls’ playing to trespass on your good nature.”

“Then I shall not play,” he said, rather crossly.

“And pray what do I care if you don’t?”

“It would be polite to pretend to, at any rate.”

 
“‘The slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes;’”
 

she quoted, twirling her gay parasol swiftly on its handle. “Do see Tom Carruth serve. That cut is my despair.”

“It is simple enough to return,” Granton answered, “if you know when it is coming: you’ve only to run up.”

“Yes, but how is one to know when it is coming?”

“One always can tell when I give it,” he replied, laughing, “for I always fling my head back.”

There came a wicked sparkle of intelligence into Betty’s eyes as she made a mental note of this confession for future use. Then the long lashes fell demurely over her cheeks as she gathered together her belongings and rose.

“I must go over to grandmother’s,” she said. “Never spend the summer near your grandmother’s, Mr. Granton: she may be ill and absorb all your spare time.”

And away sped the deceitful damsel, on nefarious schemes intent, to play tennis with her cousin George, who had responded with celerity to her summons. She was really improving with a good deal of rapidity. She had been a sad romp in her day, and every prank of her tomboy girlhood stood her in good stead now. Every fence and tree she had climbed, to the unspeakable horror and scandal of elderly spinster aunts, every game of ball for which she had been lectured by an eminently proper governess, every stolen fishing-expedition and hoydenish race whose improprieties my lady buried with overwhelming scorn in the oblivion of the past, had been a preparation for the struggle into which she now threw herself with the whole force of mind and body.

Her cousin George Snow, who was sufficiently fond of his mischievous cousin, and duly grateful for her supposed good offices in arranging the difficulties between himself and Dora, was an invaluable ally. He was taken into full confidence, and embraced the project most heartily. Granton was a right nice fellow, he admitted, but it certainly would not hurt him to be taken down a peg. Snow had just returned from England, where he had seen some of the finest tennis-players perform.

“You play too near the net,” he said. “All American players do. Play well back, and above everything, put all your force into the return.”

“But I shall send the ball out of the court,” Betty protested.

“You mustn’t. Drive it down as hard as ever you can. Strength – or rather swiftness – tells; if your service is swift enough it is worth all the fancy cuts in the world. The Renshaws make half their points by volleying from the service-line, and the rest by swift service.”

“Swiftness is the word,” Betty returned gayly. “Anything more?”

“Get used to striking back-handed; don’t try to turn your thumb down; make a business of an out-and-out back-handed, wrong-side-of-the-racquet stroke.”

How sound all this advice was, tennis players may determine for themselves; but it certainly served its purpose well. Betty was a promising pupil. Morning, noon, and night she played, working with an assiduity which nearly fagged her cousin out.

“You are plucky, Betty,” he declared one day. “I’m afraid for my own laurels. And by the way, am I to be allowed to be present at this great tournament in which you are to cover yourself and your sex with glory?”

“Oh, yes; you are to challenge Mr. Granton if he beats me, – though he sha’n’t! Anybody can challenge the winner, you know. That’s a provision I had put in myself to cover my own case.”

“Poor Granton!” George laughed. “Little does he dream of the awful humiliation in store for him.”

Betty set her lips together and nodded her head in a determined way.

“George,” she declared, with tragic earnestness, “if I get beaten I shall go straight home and die of – ”

“Baffled stubbornness,” interpolated her cousin.

“Thwarted vengeance,” suggested Dora.

“No, of righteous indignation. Come, one set more before we drive back to Maugus. Only two days left, you know.”

IV

The morning of the second day of the tournament dawned clear, and what was quite as much to the purpose, unusually cool. A little breeze from the northwest crept over the hills, – just enough to fan the heated players without disturbing the flight of the balls; while to make the weather perfect for tennis, by ten o’clock a light veil of clouds had comfortably covered the sun, cutting off all troublesome rays.

“It is a perfect day,” Betty remarked to Dora, as they took their places among the spectators. “I’ve put my things ready so I can dress in two minutes. Here comes George.”

The affair was an event in quiet Maugus. It had been talked about as the most important event could not have been discussed anywhere but in the idle hours of summer leisure, and had come to be regarded as quite the event of the season. The tennis-court was laid out near the Elm House, and was surrounded by superb old trees that in all the slow years of their growth had never over-arched a prettier sight than that afternoon showed, with its groups of nice old ladies, and charming young damsels in all the picturesque bravery of their nineteenth-century costume. The contest of the first day of the tournament had disposed of all the four-handed games but the final match, and the afternoon of the second day was left free for the single games. Granton had entered for the latter, and was looked upon as the probable victor. He won easily his first rubber, and came over to where Betty sat to wait his turn again.

“It is lucky for me, Mr. Snow,” he said to George, who in the happiness of full reconciliation sat by Dora’s side, “that you are not playing, or I shouldn’t have the ghost of a chance.”

“I’m resting on the laurels I won last year,” was the light response. “It’s far easier than to risk one’s reputation and defend it.”

“Are you so sure of winning, as it is, Mr. Granton?” asked Betty coolly.

“Sure? Of course not; but I have hopes now, which I shouldn’t indulge if Mr. Snow, with the glory of his victories at Newport last year, were counted in.”

“I wish you success,” she said, with a certain trace of satire in her tone. “Isn’t Mr. Howard playing remarkably well to-day? What a splendid volley? That gives him the game.”

“Sets: two, love,” called the scorer, and Mr. Howard’s victory was saluted with applause, which Mistress Betty took great satisfaction in leading.

“You seem to be greatly pleased at Howard’s good luck,” Granton observed, remembering that when his success had been clapped, just before, Miss Mork had refrained from lending a hand.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” she returned. “I’ve bet him a pair of gloves he wins.”

“What will you bet me I lose?” demanded he, not especially pleased at any sort of understanding between the young lady before him and Howard.

“Anything you like.”

“I should like nothing so much as – ”

“As what?”

“No; upon reflection I don’t think I dare mention it,” Granton said coolly, looking at her with an expression in his big brown eyes which made her flush in spite of herself.

“Don’t be impudent,” she replied. “That is my province.”

“Time!” called the umpire, a little later. “Howard and Granton, concluding set.”

“Wish me luck,” Granton murmured, bending toward Betty as he rose.

“I’m sure I do, for my own sake,” she responded, with an ambiguity he afterward had reason to understand.

“What shall I do if Mr. Howard beats him?” Betty said to George and Dora, as the set began. “There’d be no fun playing him instead of Mr. Granton.”

“Oh, Howard hasn’t the ghost of a chance,” George responded reassuringly. “You are all right, Bet, if you don’t get nervous.”

But Betty did get nervous. The color came and went in her cheeks almost as swiftly as the flying balls were thrown, whose skilful service and returns soon proved Snow to be right in asserting that Howard had no chance against his antagonist.

“Oh, George,” she whispered, in an agony of apprehension, “can I do it? Won’t he beat me? It would be too horrible to challenge him and then fail!”

“Do it?” retorted her cousin; “of course you can do it! See that short serve. That’s what’s breaking Howard up: it’s easy for you to return if you’ll run up to it. His swift service doesn’t begin to be as good as yours.”

“Love set,” called the scorer; and as Betty looked at the supple, muscular figure of Nat Granton while the players exchanged courts, her fears almost overcame her resolve.