“I’ll not keep you waiting long,” she assured him, and turned to beckon Dora to her.

As the two girls disappeared into the hotel, the bustle and chatter began again with renewed vigor, and swelled and buzzed in the liveliest fashion. Here was a genuine sensation for Maugus. Betty was too lovely and too great a favorite with the men wholly to escape the censure of the young ladies, who now had a string of pretty things to say of her boldness and presumption. But the gentlemen rallied to a man in her support, and, by the time she reappeared, public opinion, as represented by the spectators of the tournament, if not wholly in her favor, was so in outward expression.

She was dressed in a dark-blue jersey of silk, which fitted her in that perfect combination only possible with a faultless figure and an irreproachable jersey; and below that a skirt of navy-blue flannel fell in straight plaits to her ankles, where one[122] caught, as she moved, occasional glimpses of a crimson stocking, the exact shade of her flat sash and of the close wing-tip in her trig little blue silk cap. There was nothing of the nature of tags and ends about her costume. Her hair was closely coiled, and even her ear-rings had been removed. The crimson handkerchief about her white throat was fastened into its place so securely as scarcely to be less smooth when the playing was over than when the first game began.

[122]

She was very sober,—so grave, indeed, that George went over to her just as she took her place, to say some absurd thing to make her laugh.

“Don’t be nervous,” he added, having succeeded in his object so far as to call a fleeting smile to her face. “And don’t look as if assisting at your own obsequies. You are all right, if you’ll only think so.”

“Will she do it?” Dora asked anxiously, as he took his seat again.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve told her she will, and I hope so; but it isn’t going to be so easy.”

They talked of that tennis tournament for many a long day in Maugus. Opinion was divided at first as to the probable result. There was a quiet concentration in Betty’s[123] manner which soon began to awake confidence in her ultimate success, although at first she lost. Even the most envious of the girls soon found themselves applauding every lucky hit she made; and Betty, whose senses were keenly alive that day, felt the stimulating consciousness that the general sympathy was 

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