from memory
the diagram in a book of etiquette. He added, borrowing one of the
Colonel's favorite expressions, "I hope you are very well."

"Yes, indeed.... I'm so glad you spoke to me, for to tell you the truth,
I never, never should have known you if you hadn't."

"You think that I've changed? Well," said he, gravely, "I ought to have.
You might say that I've given five months to it."

"You've changed enormously."

She examined with interest this new Mr. Queed who loafed on rustic
bridges, five miles from a Sociology, and hailed passing ladies on his
own motion. He appeared, indeed, decidedly altered.

In the first place, he looked decidedly bigger, and, to come at once to
the fact, he was. For Klinker's marvelous exercises for all parts of the
body had done more than add nineteen pounds to his weight, and deepen
his chest, and broaden his shoulders. They had pulled and tugged at the
undeveloped tissues until they had actually added a hard-won
three-quarters of an inch to his height. The stoop was gone, and instead
of appearing rather a small man, Mr. Queed now looked full middle-height
or above. He wore a well-made suit of dark blue, topped by a correct
derby. His hair was cut trim, his color was excellent, and, last miracle
of all, he wore no spectacles. It was astonishing but true. The
beautiful absence of these round disfigurements brought into new
prominence a pair of grayish eyes which did not look so very
professorial, after all.

But what Sharlee liked best about this unglassed and unscienced Mr.
Queed was his entire absence of any self-consciousness in regard to her.
When he told her that Easter Monday night that he cheerfully took his
turn on the psychological operating-table, anaesthetics barred, and no
mercy asked or given, it appeared that he, alone among men, really meant
it.

Under the tiny bridge, a correspondingly tiny brook purled without
surcease, its heart set upon somewhere finding the sea. Over their heads
a glorious maple was taking off its coat of many colors in the wind.
Sharlee put back a small hand into a large muff and said:--

"At church this morning I saw Colonel Cowles. He told me about you. I
don't know how you look at it, but I think you're a subject for the
heartiest congratulations. So here are mine."

"The men at the Mercury were pleased, too," mused Mr. Queed, looking out
over the landscape. "Do you ever read my articles now?"

"For many years," said Sharlee, evasively