"Nonsense, dear," soothed her mother. "There's from now until June before Dot comes home for good; and Joe so perfectly devoted to you—" At the aghast look on Harriet's face she continued smoothly: "And who knows what nice man you may happen to meet, child? Prince Charming may be around the next corner!"
"If he is," said Harriet very slowly, very thoughtfully, her mind glancing backward over the past four years, "he'll dance with me, he'll play tennis with me, he'll take me out in his car, he'll tell me I'm the best pal a fellow ever had, especially when he's blue; and then, after a while, he'll come in beaming to tell me he's in love with Meg or Clare—oh, any of the girls, but it won't be me!"
"There's Joe." This time her mother's voice had the tender defiance of the days when she used to bind up a cut finger with the assurance, "There, there! Nothing shall hurt mother's baby girl!" There was a shade of reproof, too, in Mrs. Nelson's tone. "Joe has never looked at any one but you in his life. You shouldn't talk as if nobody cared for you when a fine, honorable man like Joe has been in love with you ever since you were a schoolgirl."
"Imagine Joe by Ed Canfield!"
"I can imagine him very well," her mother replied steadily. "Of course, Ed has more money and better looks, but a girl doesn't marry just the present generation. Those who were behind a man go into his inheritance, and into his children's inheritance. I don't suppose there's a young man in Yarborough with as fine an ancestry as Joe's—a long line of good men, holding high positions of trust in the State, and of dignified gentlewomen. Joe is better bom than Ed, and we both know it."
"I'll never marry a one-eyed runt like Joe as long as I live!" declared Harriet hotly. "Of course, I'm awfully fond of him in a way. He was so understanding about—about Arthur Burton."
Harriet did not realize that nothing had added so much to her desirability in Joe's eyes as the preference shown her by a handsome, sophisticated man like Burton.
"Mother, what shall I do next winter?" Harriet asked slowly.
"I've been thinking a great deal about that, daughter. If we're to give Dotty the same pleasures you girls had, it would be a big help to dad if you could be independent for a year. Would you like to stay with your Aunt Mattie at Warrenton, and teach domestic science in the high school? Her husband is on the school board, and you do get along so wonderfully with children. But there's time enough to think about that. Trot along, now, darling, and bring me your cerise frock. It's going to be hard to fix spiral ruffles after such a long period of chemise frocks."
Harriet wore the finished gown to the rehearsal of Meg's wedding, to which she went with Joe.
"Did you know that Meg had arranged for us to wait on her together, and I balked?" asked Joe. "' Once to the altar, never again.' I'm not superstitious, but I'll take no chance against the one thing I want most in the world!"
It swept over Harriet that for her own sake, as well as Joe's, she must settle matters finally. She slipped her hand through his arm, as if the friendly contact might soften the words:
"That can never be, Joe. Please always be my very best friend, because that's all I can be to you— ever."
She could not see his face in the darkness. She could only hear the strained note in his voice:
"Ever since I was a man I've had that one clear picture in my mind—a home, you in it, lots of jolly flowers in the yard, and maybe—"
He broke off, and presently spoke again in his matter-of-fact way:
"Father wants me to go to Buenos Aires early next month. He has a cousin out there who seems to be quite influential, and who has written for me to come. Mother thinks it will do me good to get out of the rut of office work and see a little of the world. I hadn't decided—until now."
"Buenos Aires!" echoed Harriet dismally. "Why, Joe, that's almost at the bottom end of South America! It's on the other side of the equator! I never even heard of anybody who went to Buenos Aires."
But go he did, on the next steamer. His friends gave him a farewell dinner and trooped to the train to say good-by. Perhaps Joe himself was surprised to realize how many friends he had.
III
The immediate effect of Joe's departure, where Harriet was concerned, was that she had no escort for the next dance. It was
