her eyes, an enticing, naive
harmony.

She carried the forgotten aprons, and handed them to him gravely.

"You left these," she said; and then, to regularize the situation, "My
name's Anita Smithers. I ought've told you this afternoon, but--I
guess I was kind of forgetful, too."

That made them both smile, and the smile left them less shy. He
stuffed the forgotten aprons into his overcoat pocket.

"I was so afraid you wouldn't come. Where can we go? I don't know
anything much about the city. I'd like to take you to a nice picture
show, the best there is."

She flushed with the glory of it.

"There's a real nice picture house only a little ways from here. They
got a Pauline Frederick film on. I'm just crazy about Pauline
Frederick."

By this time they were walking sedately out of the park, not daring to
look at each other. She watched him while he bought the tickets and
then a box of caramels from the candy stand inside.

"He knows what to do," she thought proudly. "He's not a bit of a
hick."

"D'you go to the pictures a lot?" he asked when they were seated.

"'Most every night. I'm just crazy about 'em."

"I expect you've got steady company, then?" The question fairly jerked
out of him.

She shook her head. "No, I almost always go by myself. My girl friend,
she goes with me sometimes."

He sighed with relief. "They got good picture shows in Frederick. I go
'most every Saturday night."

"But you don't live right in Frederick, you said."

He seized the chance to tell her about himself.

"Oh, my, no. I live back in the mountains. Say, I just wish you could
see my place. It's up high, and you can look out, ever so
far--everything kind of drops away below, and you can see the river
and the woods, and it takes different colours, 'cording to the season
and the weather. Some days when I'm ploughing or disking and I get up
on the ridge, it's so high up and far away seems like I'm on top the
whole world. It's lonesome--it's off the pike, you see--but I like it.
Here in the city everything crowds on you so close."

She had listened with the keenest interest.

"That's so. It must be grand to get off by yourself and have plenty
room. I get so tired of that squinched-in, narrow, stuffy shop; and
the place where I board is worse. I don't make enough to have a room
by myself. There's two other girls in with me, and seems like we're
always under-foot to each other. And there isn't any parlour, and we
got only o