ned to Saxon. "How near did I come to it?"

"One hundred and twenty-two," she answered, looking deliberately at
Mary. "One twenty two with my clothes."

Billy burst into hearty laughter, in which Bert joined.

"I don't care," Mary protested, "You're terrible, both of you--an' you,
too, Saxon. I'd never a-thought it of you."

"Listen to me, kid," Bert began soothingly, as his arm slipped around
her waist.

But in the false excitement she had worked herself into, Mary rudely
repulsed the arm, and then, fearing that she had wounded her lover's
feelings, she took advantage of the teasing and banter to recover
her good humor. His arm was permitted to return, and with heads bent
together, they talked in whispers.

Billy discreetly began to make conversation with Saxon.

"Say, you know, your name is a funny one. I never heard it tagged on
anybody before. But it's all right. I like it."

"My mother gave it to me. She was educated, and knew all kinds of words.
She was always reading books, almost until she died. And she wrote lots
and lots. I've got some of her poetry published in a San Jose newspaper
long ago. The Saxons were a race of people--she told me all about them
when I was a little girl. They were wild, like Indians, only they were
white. And they had blue eyes, and yellow hair, and they were awful
fighters."

As she talked, Billy followed her solemnly, his eyes steadily turned on
hers.

"Never heard of them," he confessed. "Did they live anywhere around
here?"

She laughed.

"No. They lived in England. They were the first English, and you know
the Americans came from the English. We're Saxons, you an' me, an' Mary,
an' Bert, and all the Americans that are real Americans, you know, and
not Dagoes and Japs and such."

"My folks lived in America a long time," Billy said slowly, digesting
the information she had given and relating himself to it. "Anyway, my
mother's folks did. They crossed to Maine hundreds of years ago."

"My father was 'State of Maine," she broke in, with a little gurgle of
joy. "And my mother was horn in Ohio, or where Ohio is now. She used to
call it the Great Western Reserve. What was your father?"

"Don't know." Billy shrugged his shoulders. "He didn't know himself.
Nobody ever knew, though he was American, all right, all right."

"His name's regular old American," Saxon suggested. "There's a big
English general right now whose name is Roberts. I've read it in the
papers."

"Bu