and from
the spring I echoed "Amen."

"Yes--I'm so hung with family skeletons that I clatter when I walk," I
explained, pretending I hadn't heard, and brought them both glasses of
water. "It's got to be a habit with some people to save their sciatica
and their husband's dispositions and their torpid livers and their
unpaid bills and bring 'em here to me."

He sniffed at the glass and put it down.

"Herr Gott!" he said, "what a water! It is--the whole thing is
extraordinary! I can understand the reason for Carlsbad or Wiesbaden--it
is gay. One sees one's friends; it is--social. But here--!"

He got up and, lifting a window curtain, peered out into the snow.

"Here," he repeated, "shut in by forests and hills, a thousand miles
from life--" He shrugged his shoulders and came back to the table. "It
is well enough for the father," he went on to Miss Patty, "but for you!
Why--it is depressing, gray. The only bit of color in it all is--here,
in what you call the spring-house." I thought he meant Miss Patty's
cheeks or her lovely violet eyes, but he was looking at my hair. I had
caught his eye on it before, but this time he made no secret about it,
and he sighed, for all the world as if it reminded him of something.
He went over to the slot-machine and stood in front of it, humming and
trying the different combinations. I must say he had a nice back.

Miss Patty came over and slipped her hand in mine.

"Well?" she whispered, looking at me with her pretty eyebrows raised.

"He looks all right," I had to confess. "Perhaps you can coax him to
shave."

She laughed.

"Oskar!" she called, "you have passed, but you are conditioned. Minnie
objects to the mustache."

He turned and looked at me gravely.

"It is my--greatest attraction," he declared, "but it is also a great
care. If Miss Minnie demands it, I shall give it to her in a--in a
little box." He sauntered over and looked at me in his audacious way.
"But you must promise to care for it. Many women have loved it."

"I believe that!" I answered, and stared back at him without blinking.
"I guess I wouldn't want the responsibility."

But I had an idea that he meant what he said about the many women, and
that Miss Patty knew it as well as I did. She flushed a little, and
they went very soon after that. I stood and watched them until they
disappeared in the snow, and I felt lonelier than ever, and sad,
although certainly he was better than I had expected to find him. H