“Well I fear it doesn’t sound sufficiently romantic,” he laughed, “but Helen’s such a sturdy little wretch.  The first things I ever noticed about her was her horse sense.  She’s good on her job, too.  She seems to me like the West.  Though that’s rather amusing, for she’s such a little bit of a thing.  She’s afraid she’ll get fat.  But she won’t.  She’s not that kind.”

“Why of course not,” said Katie stoutly, and they laughed and seemed very near to Helen in thus scorning her fear of getting fat.

He continued his confidences, laughter from the porch coming down to them all the while.  Helen was so real—­she was so square—­so independent—­so dauntless—­and yet she had such dear little ways.  He couldn’t make her sound as nice as she was; Katie would have to come and see her.  In fact they were counting on Katie’s coming.  She was to come and stay a long time with them and really get acquainted with the West.  “I’ll tell you what Helen’s like,” he summed it up.  “She’s very much what you would have been if you’d lived out there and had the advantages she has.”

Katie stared.  No, he was not trying to be funny.

They started toward the house.  “Katie,” he broke out, “if you have any cousinly love in your heart, and know anything about Walt Whitman, tell me something, so I can go back and spring it on Helen.  She’s mad over him.”

“He was one of the ‘advantages’ I didn’t have,” said Katie.  “He didn’t play a heavy part in the thing I had that passed for an education.”

“Isn’t it the limit the way they ‘do you’ at those girls’ schools?” agreed Fred sympathetically.  “Helen says that in religion and education the more you pay the less you get.”

“I should like her,” laughed Katie.

But what would her Aunt Elizabeth think of a “sturdy little wretch,” believing in the economic independence of woman—­whatever that might be—­with lots of horse sense, and good on her job!

Katie was on the outside now, and for good.  If nothing else, the fun was out there.  And there was something else.  That light on Fred’s face when he was trying to tell about Helen.

Captain Prescott had come down the steps to meet them.  “I was just coming for you.  Don’t you think, Katie, it would be fun to look in on the dance up here at the club house?”

On the alert for shielding Ann, Katie demurred.  It was late, and Ann was tired from her golf.

There was an eager little flutter, and Ann had stepped forward.  “Oh, I’m not at all tired, Katie,” she said.

“Does she look tired?” scoffed Wayne.  “She’s only tired of being made to play the invalid.  Hurry along, Katie.  If you girls aren’t sufficiently befrocked, frock up at once.”

Katie hesitated, annoyed.  She felt shorn of the function of her office.  And she was dubious.  The party was one which the younger set over the river were giving—­at the golf club-house on the Island—­for the returned college boys.  She did not know who might be there—­she was always meeting friends of her friends.  She felt a trifle injured in thinking that just for the sake of Ann she had avoided the social life those people offered her, and now—­