some little
time. "It is suggested by that little bird there. It is Phoebe."

"Do you think it is appropriate," she objected. "A Phoebe bird or a
Phoebe girl always seemed to me to be demure and quiet and thoughtful
and sweet-voiced and fond of dim forests, while I am a frivolous,
laughing, sunny individual who likes the open air and doesn't care for
shadows at all."

"Yet I feel it is appropriate," he insisted. He paused and went on a
little timidly in the face of his new experience in giving expression
to the more subtle feelings. "I don't know whether I can express it or
not. You are laughing and sunny, as you say, but there is something in
you like the Phoebe bird just the same. It is like those cloud
shadows." He pointed out over the mountains. Overhead a number of
summer clouds were winging their way from the west, casting on the
earth those huge irregular shadows which sweep across it so swiftly,
yet with such dignity; so rushingly, and yet so harmlessly. "The hills
are sunny and bright enough, and all at once one of the shadows crosses
them, and it is dark. Then in another moment it is bright again."

"And do you really see that in me?" she asked curiously. "You are a
dear boy," she continued, looking at him for some moments with
reflective eyes. "It won't do though," she said, rising at last. "It's
too 'fancy.'"

"I don't know then," he confessed with some helplessness.

"I'll tell you what I've always _wanted_ to be called," said she, "ever
since I was a little girl. It is 'Mary.'"

"Mary!" he cried, astonished. "Why, it is such a common name."

"It is a beautiful name," she asserted. "Say it over. Aren't the
syllables soft and musical and caressing? It is a lovely name. Why I
remember," she went on vivaciously, "a girl who was named Mary, and who
didn't like it. When she came to our school she changed it, but she
didn't dare to break it to the family all at once. The first letter
home she signed herself 'Mae.' Her father wrote back, 'My dear
daughter, if the name of the mother of Jesus isn't good enough for you,
come home.'" She laughed at the recollection.

"Then you have been away to school?" asked the young man.

"Yes," she replied shortly.

She adroitly led him to talk of himself. He told her naively of New
York and tennis, of brake parties and clubs, and even afternoon teas
and balls, all of which, of course, interested a Western girl
exceedingly. In this it so happened that his immaturity s