n the stage at
this moment, if that manager had taken him. Mr. Baxter began to look
nervous.

Still, there is a difference between going on the stage and getting
married. "I don't know, though!" Mr. Baxter thought. "And Willie's
certainly not so well balanced in a GENERAL way as I was." He wished
his wife would come down and reassure him, though of course it was all
nonsense.

But when Mrs. Baxter came down-stairs she did not reassure him. "Of
course Jane's too absurd!" she said. "I don't mean that she 'made it
up'; she never does that, and no doubt this little Miss Pratt did say
about what Jane thought she said. But it all amounts to nothing."

"Of course!"

"Willie's just going through what several of the other boys about his
age are going through--like Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt and Wallace
Banks. They all seem to be frantic over her."

"I caught a glimpse of her the day you had her to tea. She's rather
pretty."

"Adorably! And perhaps Willie has been just a LITTLE bit more frantic
than the others."

"He certainly seems in a queer state!"

At this his wife's tone became serious. "Do you think he WOULD do as
crazy a thing as that?"

Mr. Baxter laughed. "Well, I don't know what he'd do it ON! I don't
suppose he has more than a dollar in his possession."

"Yes, he has," she returned, quickly. "Day before yesterday there was
a second-hand furniture man here, and I was too busy to see him, but
I wanted the storeroom in the cellar cleared out, and I told Willie he
could have whatever the man would pay him for the junk in there, if he'd
watch to see that they didn't TAKE anything. They found some old pieces
that I'd forgotten, underneath things, and altogether the man paid
Willie nine dollars and eighty-five cents."

"But, mercy-me!" exclaimed Mr. Baxter, "the girl may be an idiot, but
she wouldn't run away and marry a boy just barely seventeen on nine
dollars and eighty-five cents!"

"Oh no!" said Mrs. Baxter. "At least, I don't THINK so. Of course girls
do as crazy things as boys sometimes--in their way. I was thinking--"
She paused. "Of COURSE there couldn't be anything in it, but it did seem
a little strange."

"What did?"

"Why, just before I came down-stairs, Adelia came for the laundry; and
I asked her if she'd seen Willie; and she said he'd put on his dark
suit after dinner, and he went out through the kitchen, carrying his
suit-case."

"He did?"

"Of course," Mrs. Baxter went on, slowly,