her rosy lips he kissed her. Then he walked home, and all
the long mile, though his feet trod the earth, he knew it not. Rather
was he floating on ripples of moonlight, with a fairy-like face and
tender blue eyes ever hovering over him, and a soft white hand clinging
to his arm.

And so ended the boy's first party.

CHAPTER VI.

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

When the boy reached home a new and surprising change had come to him.
For the first time in his life he began to think--and what was more to
the point, to faintly see himself as he was, and the picture was not
pleasant. He had longed to be a man. He began to feel that he was almost
one, and a poorly clad and ignorant one at that. He lay awake nearly all
that night, and not only lived the party over, but more especially the
walk home with Liddy.

All he had cared for before was boyish sports, to do his work, and
escape wearing his best clothes. Now he began to think about those same
clothes and how ill they fitted him and how awkward they made him look,
and the more he thought about it the more he wondered how Liddy could
have been so nice to him. He vowed he would never be seen in public
again with them on. He had seen boys in the village who wore neat and
well-fitting garments, a starched shirt and collar that buttoned to it,
instead of being pinned to the top of a roundabout, as his was, and
thinking of them made him ashamed of himself. And then that awful gap
between his pants and boots! Then he thought of how the girls were
laughing when he came into the room at the party, and now he felt sure
they must have been making fun of him, and that made him feel worse than
ever. His coarse boots, in comparison with the nice, thin ones worn by
some of the other boys there, also haunted him. In short, he took a
mental inventory of himself, and the sum total was not pleasing.

All the next day he was glum and thoughtful and for a week he acted the
same. It was the birth of the man in him; the step from the happy,
care-free boy to young manhood. It was also, be it said, the beginning
of a woman's refining influence that has slowly and for countless ages
gradually lifted man from savagery to enlightenment. An evolution of
good conduct, garb and cleanliness made necessary by woman's favor, and
to win her admiration. The cynics call it vanity. So then, must they
call the evolution of the species vanity. It may be so, but call it what
you will, it's the influence that has