"You surprise me." Saunders flushed red. "I didn't know that I had ever--I don't remember-"
"No, I'm sure you don't, and I didn't mention it, but I'm going to tell you now, for I am very, very grateful. You know, perhaps, that Ann used to care a good deal for that reckless fellow Abe Westbrook?"
"Yes, I remember seeing them together frequently," Saunders answered.
"Well, he became more and more dissipated and so bold and ill-bred that he even came to see her when he was intoxicated. I was afraid to call father's attention to it for two reasons--first, father's temper, and then the fear I had that Ann might elope with the fellow. So I had to be very, very cautious. I tried talking to Ann, but it went in at one ear and out at the other. Nothing I said had the slightest effect on her. Then she got to meeting him at different places away from home, and I was almost crazy. Then you, as you always have done, came to my aid."
"I? Why, Dolly, I am sure that I have never--"
"You don't remember it"--Dolly's voice shook, and a delicate glow suffused her face--"but I'll remind you. You recall the picnic over the mountain last spring?"
"The day you didn't go," Saunders nodded. "I remember looking for you everywhere."
"Well, that day, when all the girls felt so highly honored by your presence, and you were so nice to them, you paid a good deal of attention to Ann, asking her to drive home with you."
"Of course I remember that," Saunders said; "I enjoyed the drive very much."
"It wasn't anything you said, exactly," Dolly went on, "but you may remember that Abe was drinking that day and misbehaved badly before every one, even when they were all eating lunch together. Ann told me all about it. She came to my bed away in the night and waked me. She told me she had made up her mind never to see Westbrook again. In contrasting him with you she saw what a failure he was. She said she had never before so plainly seen her danger. She saw the look of disgust in your face while Abe was acting so badly, and your failure to refer to the incident on the way home impressed her. That happening completely turned her round, opened her eyes, and already she has stopped thinking of him."