"Larry, oh Larry, I'm finding myself," she whispered breathlessly.

"I'm glad but I'm gladder that I'm finding--yourself. Come on outside
sweetheart. I want to shout. I can't whisper and I won't. I'll get us
both put out if you won't come peaceably."

"I'll come," said Ruth meekly.

Outside in the corridor she raised blue eyes to gray ones.

"I didn't mean you to find me--yet," she sighed.

"So I should judge. I didn't think a mite of a fairy girl like you could
be so cruel. Some day I'll exact full penance for all you've made me
suffer but just now we'll waive that and go over to the Plaza and have a
high tea and talk. But first I'm going to kiss you. I don't care if
people are looking. All Boston can look if it likes. I'm going to do it."

But it was only a scrub woman and not all Boston who witnessed that kiss,
and she paid no attention to the performance. Even had she seen it is
hardly probable that she would have been vastly startled at the sight.
She was a very old woman and more than likely she had seen such sights
before. Perhaps she had even been kissed by a man herself, once upon a
time. We hope so.

The next day Larry and Ruth came home to the Hill, radiantly happy and
full of their strange adventures. Ruth was wearing an immensely becoming
new dark blue velvet suit, squirrel furs and a new hat which to Margery's
shrewd feminine eyes betrayed a cost all out of proportion to its
minuteness. She was looking exquisitely lovely in her new finery. Scant
wonder Larry could not keep his eyes off of her. Margery and Philip were
something in the same state.

"On the strength of my being an heiress maybe Larry thought I might
afford some new clothes," Ruth confessed. "Of course he paid for
them--temporarily," she had added with a charming blush and a side long,
deprecating glance at Doctor Holiday, senior. She did not want him to
disapprove of her for letting Larry buy her pretty clothes nor blame
Larry for doing it.

But he only laughed and remarked that he would have gone shopping with
her himself if he had any idea the results would be so satisfactory.

It was only when he was alone with Margery that he shook his head.

"Those crazy children behave as if everything were quite all right and as
if they could run right out any minute and get married. She doesn't even
wear her ring any more and they both appear to think the fact it
presumably represents can be disposed of as summarily."

"Let them alone,"