run for the house?"

"No," said Yerba, to Milly's great surprise. "That would look as
if we cared. Besides, I don't know that Mr. Hathaway has come to
see ME. We'll stroll out and meet them accidentally."

Milly was still more astonished. However, she said, "Wait a
moment, dear!" and, with the instinctive deftness of her sex, in
three small tugs and a gentle hitch, shook Yerba's gown into
perfect folds, passed her fingers across her forehead and over her
ears, securing, however, with a hairpin on their passage three of
the rose petals where they had fallen. Then, discharging their
faces of any previous expression, these two charming hypocrites
sallied out innocently into the walk. Nothing could be more
natural than their manner: if a criticism might be ventured upon,
it was that their elbows were slightly drawn inwards and before
them, leaving their hands gracefully advanced in the line of their
figures, an attitude accepted throughout the civilized world of
deportment as indicating fastidious refinement not unmingled with
permissible hauteur.

The three gentlemen lifted their hats at this ravishing apparition,
and halted. The Mayor advanced with great politeness.

"I feared you didn't hear me call you, Miss Yerba, so we ventured
to seek you. As the two girls exchanged almost infantile glances
of surprise, he continued: "Mr. Paul Hathaway has done us the honor
of seeking you here, as he did not find you at the convent. You
may have forgotten that Mr. Hathaway is the third one of your
trustees."