young girl to have gone so practically to work." Then as
Emily at the gate looked back, nodding archly, he repeated it. "A
praiseworthy young girl, praiseworthy and sensible," his gaze
following her, "as well as handsome."

He went in, but Alexina lingered on the broad stone steps. It was
October and the twilight was purple and hazy. Chrysanthemums bloomed
against the background of the shrubbery; the maples along the street
were drifting leaves upon the sidewalk; the sycamores stood with their
shed foliage like a cast garment about their feet, raising giant white
limbs naked to heaven.

There were lights in the wide brick cottage. Strangers lived there
now. A swinging sign above the gate set forth that a Doctor Ransome
dwelt therein.

The eddying fall of leaves is depressing. Autumn anyhow is a
melancholy time. Alexina, going in, closed the door.

CHAPTER TWO

The Blair reception to introduce their niece may have been to others
the usual matter of lights and flowers and music, but to the niece it
was different, for it was her affair.

She and her aunt went down together. The stairway was broad, and
to-night its banister trailed roses.

Alexina was radiant. She even marched up and kissed her uncle. Things
felt actually festive.

All the little social world was there that evening. Alexina recalled
many of the girls and the older women; of the older men she knew a
few, but of the younger only one could she remember as knowing.

He was a rosy-cheeked youth with vigorous, curling yellow hair, and he
came up to her with a hearty swinging of the body, smiling in a
friendly and expectant way, showing nice, square teeth, boyishly far
apart. She knew him at once; he had gone to dancing school when she
did, and she was glad to see him.

"Why, Georgy," she said, and held out a hand, just as it was borne in
upon her that Georgy wore a young down on his lip and was a man.

"Oh," she said, blushing, "I hope you don't mind?"

He was blushing, too, but the smile that showed his nice spaced teeth
was honest.

"No," he said; "I don't mind."

Which Alexina felt was good of him and so she smiled back and chatted
and tried to make it up. And Georgy lingered and continued to linger
and to blush beneath his already ruddy skin until Harriet, turning,
sent him away, for Harriet was a woman of the world and Georgy was the
rich and only child of the richest mamma present, and the other mammas
were watching.

Alexina's