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 thought Irene’s manner perfection! Everything that Rilla had prepared to say vanished from her memory. Vainly trying to tuck her unlucky foot under her chair, she blurted out a blunt statement.

“I have come to athk a favor of you, Irene.”

There—lisping! Oh, she had been prepared for humiliation but not to this extent! Really, there were limits!

“Yes?” said Irene in a cool, questioning tone, lifting her shallowly-set, insolent eyes to Rilla’s crimson face for a moment and then dropping them again as if she really could not tear them from their fascinated gaze at the shabby boot and the gallant shoe.

Rilla gathered herself together. She would not lisp—she would be calm and composed.

“Mrs. Channing cannot come because her son is ill in Kingsport, and I have come on behalf of the committee to ask you if you will be so kind as to sing for us in her place.” Rilla enunciated every word so precisely and carefully that she seemed to be reciting a lesson.

“It’s something of a fiddler’s invitation, isn’t it?” said Irene, with one of her disagreeable smiles.

“Olive Kirk asked you to help when we first thought of the concert and you refused,” said Rilla.

“Why, I could hardly help—then—could I?” asked Irene plaintively. “After you had ordered me never to speak to you again? It would have been very awkward for us both, don’t you think?”

Now for the humble pie.

“I want to apologize to you for saying that, Irene,” said Rilla steadily. “I should not have said it and I