Edna hesitated.  “Shall I, Crawford?” she asked.

Her companion did not hesitate.  “I think perhaps you’d better, Edna,” he said.  “I—­I guess I won’t be long.”

Miss Keith hurried out.  Mary-’Gusta turned her attention to the remaining visitor.

“You can get up now,” she said.  “Some of it will tear off, anyway, and if you hurry you will have time to run home and change your—­your clothes.”

Crawford was evidently much surprised, also his embarrassment was not lessened; but he rose.

“Then—­then you knew?” he stammered.

“Of course I knew.  I saw you sit down on it, didn’t I?  If I’d known what you were going to do I’d have told you to look out.  But you did it so quick I couldn’t.  Now tear off as much as you can.”

The young gentleman obeyed orders.  “Does it show much?” he queried.  “I can’t see.  Is there much left?”

Mary-’Gusta smiled.  His contortions were as violent as they were vain.  “There’s enough,” she said simply.  “Here are the things you bought.  Now go out of the back door and cut across the fields.  It’s the shortest way home.”

Mr. Smith took his various parcels, including the six boxes of marshmallows which Mary-’Gusta produced from beneath the counter.  “I thought you said these were stale,” he observed, wonderingly.

“I said they weren’t real fresh, but they’re fresh enough for a toast.  I said that so that the Keith girl wouldn’t wait.  I didn’t think you wanted her to.”

“You bet your life I didn’t!  So that’s why you said you would have to open the other box?  Just—­just to help me out?”

“Yes.  Now don’t stop any longer.  You’ll have to run, you know.  Go out the back way.”

Crawford started for the door of the back room, but at that door he paused.

“Say,” he said, feelingly, “this is mighty white of you, do you know it?  And after the way I guyed you when I first came in!  I guess I was rather fresh, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, you were.”

“Yes, yes, I guess I was.  I thought you were just a country kid, you know, and I—­say, by George, you were white.  If I’d been you I’d have got square.  You had the chance; ’twould have served me right for playing the smart Aleck.  I beg your pardon.  You’re all right!  And I’m awfully sorry I was such a chump.”

It was a straightforward, honest apology and confession of fault.  Mary-’Gusta was pleased, but she did not show it.  He had referred to her as a kid and she did not like that.

“If you don’t hurry—­yes, and run like everything,” she said, “you won’t have time to get home and change and meet the others at the boat.  And somebody else will see you, too.  You’d better go.”

The young man went without further delay.  Mary-’Gusta watching from the back door saw him racing across the fields in the direction of the Keith cottage.  When her uncles returned she said nothing of the occurrence.  She considered it funny, but she knew Crawford Smith did not, and she was sure he would prefer to have the secret kept.