ssing of the spell which she had laid upon him had come a
passion as strong as ever for her sex, coupled with hopeless and
glacial indifference to its human interpretesses. The girl began to
feel the strain of a monosyllabic listener, but she had the courage of
a heroine. She clutched her companion's arm as her father topped his
drive from the first tee. As though by accident, her fingers remained
on Jacob's coat sleeve.

"Poor dad!" she sighed. "Did you see him miss his drive? He'll be so
disappointed. He used to play quite well, but that wretched City--he
doesn't seem to be able to shake it off, nowadays. I wonder why it's
so difficult, Mr. Pratt," she added, raising her eyes artlessly to
his, "for some people to make money?"

"We haven't all the same luck," Jacob observed.

"Dad rushes home on Saturdays so tired," she went on, "and then
wonders why he plays golf so badly, wonders why mother isn't always
cheerful, and why we girls can't dress on twopence a week. Why,
stockings alone,"--she lifted her foot from the ground, gazed
pensively at it for a moment and then suddenly returned it. Her ankle
was certainly shapely, and the brevity of her skirts and a slight
breeze permitted a just appreciation of a good many inches of
mysterious white hose. "But of course you don't know anything about
the price of women's clothes," she broke in with a laugh. "I hope you
don't mind my hair looking a perfect mop. I never can keep it tidy out
of doors, and I hate a hat."

Jacob patiently did his best.

"I like to see girls without their hats when they have hair as pretty
as yours," he assured her, "and some day or other you must play me a
round of golf for a dozen pairs of stockings."

"Wouldn't I just love to!" she exclaimed with joy. "Now or any other
old time! I warn you that I should cheat, though. The vision of a
dozen pairs of stockings melting into thin air because of your
wonderful play would be too harrowing.--What on earth is that?"

Jacob, too, was listening with an air of suddenly awakened interest.
Up the hill came a black speck, emitting from behind a cloud of smoke
and punctuating its progress with the customary series of explosions.

"I do wish I had a two-seater," the girl sighed.

"I rather believe it's some one for me," Jacob said, stepping eagerly
forward.

The girl remained by his side. Felix brought the car to the side of
the road which wound its way across the common, shook the dust from
his clothe