dainty feet and ankles to match
a dainty figure. She was a Quakeress, the daughter of Quaker parents,
wearing a demure little bonnet. Her disposition, however, was vivacious,
and she liked this self-reliant, self-sufficient, straight-spoken boy.
One day, after an exchange of glances from time to time, he said, with a
smile and the courage that was innate in him: "You live up my way, don't
you?"

"Yes," she replied, a little flustered--this last manifested in a
nervous swinging of her school-bag--"I live at number one-forty-one."

"I know the house," he said. "I've seen you go in there. You go to the
same school my sister does, don't you? Aren't you Patience Barlow?" He
had heard some of the boys speak her name. "Yes. How do you know?"

"Oh, I've heard," he smiled. "I've seen you. Do you like licorice?"

He fished in his coat and pulled out some fresh sticks that were sold at
the time.

"Thank you," she said, sweetly, taking one.

"It isn't very good. I've been carrying it a long time. I had some taffy
the other day."

"Oh, it's all right," she replied, chewing the end of hers.

"Don't you know my sister, Anna Cowperwood?" he recurred, by way of
self-introduction. "She's in a lower grade than you are, but I thought
maybe you might have seen her."

"I think I know who she is. I've seen her coming home from school."

"I live right over there," he confided, pointing to his own home as he
drew near to it, as if she didn't know. "I'll see you around here now, I
guess."

"Do you know Ruth Merriam?" she asked, when he was about ready to turn
off into the cobblestone road to reach his own door.

"No, why?"

"She's giving a party next Tuesday," she volunteered, seemingly
pointlessly, but only seemingly.

"Where does she live?"

"There in twenty-eight."

"I'd like to go," he affirmed, warmly, as he swung away from her.

"Maybe she'll ask you," she called back, growing more courageous as the
distance between them widened. "I'll ask her."

"Thanks," he smiled.

And she began to run gayly onward.

He looked after her with a smiling face. She was very pretty. He felt
a keen desire to kiss her, and what might transpire at Ruth Merriam's
party rose vividly before his eyes.

This was just one of the early love affairs, or puppy loves, that held
his mind from time to time in the mixture of after events. Patience
Barlow was kissed by him in secret ways many times before he found
another girl. She and others of