er father was worth such a lot of money, and thought only that she
was a beautiful girl, and said so with his eyes and face and hands in
the pretty little pause that followed when she ceased singing? And if
to hide her confusion when her heart knew what he thought, she put one
foot on the loud pedal of the piano and began singing "O Margery, O
Margery," and he sang with her, and if they thrilled just a little as
their voices blended in the rollicking song--what of it? What of it?
Was it not natural that lilacs should grow in April? Was it not
natural that Watts McHurdie should dread the white light that beats
upon the throne of the sheriff's office? Was it not natural that he
should turn to women for protection against one of their sex, and that
the women plotting for him should have a boy around and having a boy
around where there is a girl around, and spring around and lilacs
around and a moon and music and joy around,--what is more natural in
all this world than that in the fire struck by the simple joy of youth
there should be the flutter of unseen wings around, and when the two
had finished singing, with something passing between their hearts not
in the words, what is more natural than that the girl, half frightened
at the thrill in her soul, should say timidly:--

"I think they will miss us out there--don't you?" as she rose from
the piano.

And if you were a boy again, only twenty-one, to whom millions of
money meant nothing, would you not catch the blue eyes of the girl as
she looked up at you, in the twilight of the big room, and answer,
"All right, Jeanette"? Certainly if you had known a girl all your
life, you would call her by her first name, if her father were worth a
billion, and would you not continue, emboldened some way by not being
frowned upon for calling her Jeanette, though she would have been
astonished if you had said Miss Barclay--astonished and maybe a
little fearful of your sincerity--would you not continue, after a
little pause, repeating your words, "All right, Jeanette--I suppose
so--but I don't care--do you?" as you followed her through the door
back to the moon-lit porch?

And as you walked home, listening to your elder sister, would you not
have time and inclination to wonder from what remote part of this
beautiful universe, from what star or what fairy realm, that creature
came, whose hair you pulled yesterday, whose legs seem to have been
covered with long skirts in the twinkling of