ad-coffee
lap suppers, and they regarded Carol as their literary and artistic
representative. She was the one who could be depended upon to appreciate
the Caruso phonograph record, and the Chinese lantern which Mr. Marbury
had brought back as his present from San Francisco. Carol found the
Marburys admiring and therefore admirable.

This September Sunday evening she wore a net frock with a pale pink
lining. A nap had soothed away the faint lines of tiredness beside her
eyes. She was young, naive, stimulated by the coolness. She flung
her coat at the chair in the hall of the flat, and exploded into
the green-plush living-room. The familiar group were trying to be
conversational. She saw Mr. Marbury, a woman teacher of gymnastics in
a high school, a chief clerk from the Great Northern Railway offices,
a young lawyer. But there was also a stranger, a thick tall man of
thirty-six or -seven, with stolid brown hair, lips used to giving
orders, eyes which followed everything good-naturedly, and clothes which
you could never quite remember.

Mr. Marbury boomed, "Carol, come over here and meet Doc Kennicott--Dr.
Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. He does all our insurance-examining up
in that neck of the woods, and they do say he's some doctor!"

As she edged toward the stranger and murmured nothing in particular,
Carol remembered that Gopher Prairie was a Minnesota wheat-prairie town
of something over three thousand people.

"Pleased to meet you," stated Dr. Kennicott. His hand was strong; the
palm soft, but the back weathered, showing golden hairs against firm red
skin.

He looked at her as though she was an agreeable discovery. She tugged
her hand free and fluttered, "I must go out to the kitchen and help Mrs.
Marbury." She did not speak to him again till, after she had heated
the rolls and passed the paper napkins, Mr. Marbury captured her with
a loud, "Oh, quit fussing now. Come over here and sit down and tell
us how's tricks." He herded her to a sofa with Dr. Kennicott, who was
rather vague about the eyes, rather drooping of bulky shoulder, as
though he was wondering what he was expected to do next. As their host
left them, Kennicott awoke:

"Marbury tells me you're a high mogul in the public library. I was
surprised. Didn't hardly think you were old enough. I thought you were a
girl, still in college maybe."

"Oh, I'm dreadfully old. I expect to take to a lip-stick, and to find a
gray hair any morning now."

"Hu