LITMIR.BIZ

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have guessed that Mollie O'Neill, as Mrs. William Webster, would have grown plumper and prettier during the busy, happy years of married life with her husband and children on their large farm. For Mollie now had a small daughter "Polly," named for her beloved twin sister, and a pair of twin sons, Dan and Billy. She was more than ever in love with her husband and, many people believed, entirely under his thumb. Yet there were times when Mollie could and would assert herself in a surprising fashion just as she had in former days with her girl friends.

      Tonight she was wearing a white silk which looked just the least bit countrified and yet was singularly becoming to Mollie's milk-white skin, pink cheeks and shining black hair. Yet in spite of never having changed his occupation of farmer, there was little to suggest the countryside in Billy Webster's appearance, except in his unusual strength and size. For he had fulfilled the prediction made to Polly O'Neill over a Camp Fire luncheon many years before. He had remained a farmer and a highly successful one and yet had seen a good deal of the world and understood many things besides farming.

      Of the three Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls who had within the last few moments joined Betty and her husband, the third was the most changed. For is it not difficult to imagine Meg Everett transformed into a fashionable society woman, Meg, whose hair never would stay neatly braided, whose waist and skirt so frequently failed to connect?

      However, after a number of love affairs, to her friends' surprise Meg had married a man as unlike her in taste and disposition as one could well imagine. He was a worldly, fashionable man, supposed to be wealthy. Anyhow, he and Meg lived in a handsome house, owned a motor car and entertained a great deal. They had no children, and perhaps this was the reason why Meg did not look altogether happy. Sometimes her old friends had wondered if there could be other reasons, for Meg had always been a warm-hearted, impetuous girl, careless of fashions and indifferent to conventions, and now she was always dressed in clothes of the latest design and at least appeared like a fashionable woman.

      Nevertheless Meg had always been more easily influenced than any other of the Camp Fire girls, hating to oppose the wishes of any one near to her heart. Her husband, Jack Emmet, was an intimate friend of her adored brother John. He and Meg made an attractive couple, for although Mr. Emmet was not handsome, he was tall and had a slender, correct figure and sharply cut features with light blue eyes and brown hair. Meg's costume was quite as beautiful as Betty's, a soft rose silk and chiffon, and her golden hair was fastened with a small rope of pearls.

      "You are as lovely tonight as ever, Betty, and I know Anthony is proud of you," Meg whispered, holding her friend's hand for an instant. "Remember when you once believed that Anthony was falling in love with me? Silly child, he never thought of any one except you! But then he and I have always been special friends since he believed I helped him win you. I want to tell him how proud I feel of you both tonight."

      As Meg moved away, Mollie's plump arm, which was only partly concealed by her glove, slipped inside her hostess's.

      "It is nice we can have a few moments to ourselves before the ball begins," she remarked shyly, glancing toward her husband, who was for the moment talking with Jack Emmet. The two men did not like each other, but had been forced into conversation by Meg's moving off with Anthony.

      Betty kissed her friend, quite forgetting the dignity of her position on the present occasion.

      "Dear old Mollie, it is good of you to have come to help me tonight! I know you don't like this society business. How I wish we had Polly here with us! She promised to come if possible, but I had a telegram from her only this afternoon saying that she is almost on the other side of the continent. It was dated Denver, I believe."

      The same look of affectionate incomprehension which she had often directed toward Polly, again crossed Mollie Webster's pretty face.

      "It is just as impossible as ever to keep up with Polly," she explained half complainingly. "She has been acting through the West all summer, but promised to come home for a visit this autumn. Now she writes she won't be here for some time. Dear me, I do wish that Polly would marry and settle down. Of course I know it is wonderful for her to have become such a distinguished actress, but I never think she is very happy and I am always worrying over her."

      Betty laughed and then looked serious. "Polly never will settle down, as you mean it, Mollie dear, even if she should marry," she argued, forgetting for the moment the other friends close about her and the evening's ordeal. For her thoughts had traveled away to Polly O'Neill, who was to her surprise still Polly O'Neill. For at one time she had certainly believed that Polly had intended marrying Richard Hunt, the actor, and just why their engagement had been broken no one had ever been told. Possibly it was because Polly had wished to devote herself entirely to her work. She had always said as a girl that marriage should never be allowed to interfere with her career, and certainly it had not. For the Polly who had made her first success some ten years before in the little Irish play was now one of the best known actresses in the United States. Indeed, she had succeeded to the position once held by Margaret Adams, since Margaret Adams had married and retired.

      However, for the present there was no further opportunity for mutual confidences, since in the interval Faith Barton had appeared and with her the Governor's new secretary, besides a dozen other persons, most of them political friends, who were to assist in opening the Inaugural Ball.

      As Anthony joined her, Betty felt her cheeks flush and her knees tremble for an instant. Moving toward them, accompanied by his wife, was the man whom Anthony had defeated in the election for Governor. To save her life Betty could not help recalling at this instant all the hateful things this man had previously said against her husband. Yet she must not be childish, nor show ill feeling. Ex-Governor Peyton and his wife were much older than she and Anthony, and besides they were their guests.

      Betty's manner was perfectly gracious and collected by the time the visitors reached them.

      CHAPTER III

      Idle Suspicion

      SHE had sat huddled up in a chair outside the baby's room for several hours. Her self-sacrifice had been entirely unnecessary, as half a dozen persons had assured her, but Angel was by no means certain that she was not happier in her present position than if she had been down-stairs in the crowded ballroom unnoticed and perhaps in the way of the few people who would try to be kind to her.

      Two or three times she had stolen in to look at Tony. He was sleeping quietly and peacefully, a big beautiful baby with Betty's soft auburn hair and Anthony's hazel eyes. But now a clock somewhere was striking twelve and Angel decided that she must have a look at the guests before they went away. She had put on the white frock of soft chiffon and lace that Betty had given her, but somehow it only made her look more childish and insignificant. Her face was pale now with weariness and her hair and eyes seemed so dark in comparison as to give her a kind of uncanny appearance. Perhaps waiting to gain more courage and perhaps for other reasons, immediately after leaving the nursery Angel, before starting down-stairs, went into another big room at the end of the hall.

      As the girl leaned over to gaze at a little sleeper a small hand reached up and touched her face. It was that of Bettina, the "little Princess" as everybody called her. Nevertheless Bettina was not in the least like her mother. She had long hair that was gold in some lights and in others a pale brown, and her eyes were bluer than gray. Indeed, Polly had once said of her two or three years before, that Tina's eyes had no color like other people's, for they merely reflected the lights above them like a clear pool. The little girl was slender and quiet and many persons believed her shy, which was not altogether true. Possibly the oddest of her characteristics was her ability to understand what other people were thinking and feeling without being told.

      Now she whispered: "Why don't you just find a place where you can see, Angel, without any one's seeing you? I shall want you to tell me everything tomorrow. Mother won't understand in the way I mean."

      Of course that was just what she should have been doing for these past two hours, Angelique thought to herself as soon after she slipped away. But it was like Bettina to have suggested it. Already she knew the exact place where she might have been in hiding all this time.

      On the second floor toward the rear of the house there was a kind of square landing which faced a small room that was oddly separated from the other

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