aused significantly, smiling back at her.

"Not at all," was her immediate reply, as she drew a bit nearer the
window, and he sat down.

The book in the girl's lap was a noted one of detective tales. Frank
caught his breath in astonishment as he noted this.

"Queer literature for such a girl to be perusing," was his mental
observation.

He cast a sly glance at her. She was looking out of the window, but the
side of her face was toward him. Frank noted that she had a beautiful
profile, and that there was a most innocent and winsome expression about
her mouth. Her hair was golden and her eyes were blue.

There was a refinement and delicacy about the girl which impressed Frank
favorably.

Still, he wondered that a girl like her should be reading a book of
detective tales. She was the sort of a girl he would have expected to
see perusing love stories of the "Bertha M. Clay" class.

He longed to get into conversation with her, and yet, for all of the
smile with which she had seemed to greet him, something held him back
and told him it was not wise to be too forward.

At last she resumed reading again. She did not read long. With a faint,
scornful laugh, she dropped the book in her lap.

Frank fancied he saw an opportunity to "break the ice."

"You do not seem to like those stories," he observed.

"They are very amusing, and utterly improbable and impossible," she
said.

The boy laughed.

"Then you fancy the author overdrew his hero?" he asked.

"To be sure he did. There is no detective living who can do such
astonishing things as this one is credited with. No such detective ever
lived."

"Possibly not."

"Surely not. You cannot make me believe that a detective could come in
here, look me over, and then tell everything about me almost to my name
and the hour of my birth. Rubbish!"

Frank's wonder at the girl was on the increase. She did not talk much
like the ordinary girl of seventeen.

"If you dislike the stories so much how does it happen you are reading
them?"

"Oh, I do not dislike them. I confess that I found them very amusing,
but I am beginning to weary of them."

"I consider it remarkable that you attempted reading them."

"Why?"

"Young ladies like you seldom care for this kind of literature."

"Oh, I see. I presume not. They are too sentimental--soft, some call it.
Well, I am not sentimental."

"Perhaps not."

She lifted her eyebrows and pursed her lips a bit.

"You say that as i