rose petals from a
blossoming vine clambering the post and cast them on Georgy.

There were other swains than Georgy these days, too, and not all of
them were youths, either, not that it mattered in the least who they
were; for in the beginning it is the homage, not the individual, that
counts.

She hung over the offerings which came to her from them with a rapture
which was more than any mere joy; it was relief. Suppose such things
had been denied her? There are maidens, worthy maidens, who never know
them, and so Alexina blushed divinely with relief. Roses to her!

And Molly, watching, would grow peevish--not over the flowers; Molly
was too sure of her own charm for that. Alexina really did not know
what it was about, and she did not believe Molly quite knew herself.

There was a lazy-eyed personage the young people called Mr. Allie.
Their mothers had called him Mr. Randall, but then he had been the
contemporary of the mothers.

No daughter of these bygone belles was secure in her place to-day
until the seal of Mr. Allie's half-serious, half-lazy approval was
upon her, or so the mothers and the daughters felt. Mr. Allie was
perennial, indolently handsome, an idler in the gay little world, yet
somehow one believed he could have gone at life in earnest had there
been need.

He, too, sent roses to Alexina, and flowers from him meant something
subtly flattering, and he came strolling around at places and sat down
by her, saying pretty things to make her blush, apparently to watch
her doing it. Not that she minded as much as she worried, because she
felt she ought to mind, and in her heart she knew she didn't really.

She had gone out with him half a dozen times perhaps, when, one
evening at a dance, Mr. Allie, seeking, found her at the far end of a
veranda where the side steps went down to the gravel. She and Georgy
were sitting there together. Georgy was telling her of his aspirations
and, in passing, dwelling on the lack of any civic spirit in the town,
the inference seeming to be that Georgy, modest as he was, some day
himself meant to supply it.

Mr. Allie told Georgy that a waiting damsel was expecting him, then
took Georgy's place. He did not speak for a while, and Alexina never
was talkative.

"Would you rather go in and dance?" at last he asked.

"Why," said Alexina; "no." Which was not quite true for she loved to
dance these days. She used to be afraid she was not going to have a
successive partner a