lanced at her friends, and, formally offering her his
arm, said seriously: "You will walk with me?"

"We were going down to Haas's for ice-cream sodas," Julia submitted
hesitatingly.

"Well, I will take you there," Mark said. And as the others, nodding
good-naturedly at this, drifted on ahead, Julia found herself walking
down O'Farrell Street on the arm of a tall and handsome man.

It was the first time that she had done just this thing--or if not the
first time, it had never seemed to have any particular significance
before. Now, however, Julia felt in her heart a little flutter of
satisfaction. Somehow Mark did not seem just a commonplace member of the
"Rosenthal gang" to-night, nor did she seem "the Page kid." Mark was a
man, and--thrilling thought!--was angry at Julia, and Julia, hanging on
his arm, with a hundred street lights flashing on her little powdered
nose and saucy hat, was at last a "young lady!"

"What's the matter, Mark?" she asked, by way of opening the
conversation.

"Oh, nothing whatever!" Mark answered, in a rich, full voice, and with
elaborate irony. "You promised to go to the Orpheum with me, and I
waited--and I waited--and you did not come. But that is nothing, of
course!"

Julia's anger smote her dumb for a moment. Then she jerked her arm from
his, and burst out:

"I'll _tell_ you why I didn't meet you to-night, Mark Rosenthal, and if
you don't like it, you know what you can do! Last week you asked me
would I go to Morosco's with you, and I said yes, and then when it came
right down to it--your mother wasn't going, and Sophy and Hannah weren't
going, and Otto wasn't going--and I tell you right now that Mama don't
like me to go to the theatre--"

"Well, well, well!" Mark interrupted soothingly, half laughing, half
aghast at this burst of rebuke from the usually gentle Julia. "Don't be
so cross about it! So--" He put her arm in his again. "I like to have
you to myself, Julia," he said, his boyish, handsome face suddenly
flushing, his voice very low. "Do you know why?"

"No," said Julia after a pause, the word strangling her.

"You don't, eh?" Mark said, with a smiling side glance.

"Nope," said Julia, dimpling as she returned the look, and shutting her
pretty lips firmly over the little word.

"Do you know you are ador-r-rable?" Mark said, in a sort of eager rush.
"Will you go to Maskey's with me, instead of joining the others at
Haas's?" he asked, more quietly.

"Well," Julia said