CHAPTER I.
BETH RECEIVES AN INVITATION.
Professor De Graf was sorting the mail at the breakfast table.
"Here's a letter for you, Beth," said he, and tossed it across the cloth to where his daughter sat.
The girl raised her eyebrows, expressing surprise.

It was something unusual for her to receive a letter.

She picked up the square envelope between a finger and thumb and carefully read the inscription, "Miss Elizabeth De Graf, Cloverton, Ohio." Turning the envelope she found on the reverse flap a curious armorial emblem, with the word "Elmhurst." Then she glanced at her father, her eyes big and somewhat startled in expression.

The Professor was deeply engrossed in a letter from Benjamin Lowenstein which declared that a certain note must be paid at maturity.

His weak, watery blue eyes stared rather blankly from behind the gold-rimmed spectacles.