hat formally, and moved aside.

"What was that?" asked Mrs. Joy, who had been watching the game and had
seen nothing of this by-play. "Did you drop something, Berry?"

"Only a note from Julia Prime," answered Berry, slipping the paper in
her pocket.

"It was very civil of that person, whoever he was," said Mrs. Joy,
unsuspiciously.

Berry and Georgie exchanged looks. Candace was at a loss what to think.

There are few better keepers of secrets than shy people. They do not let
things out by accident, as talkative persons do; it is easier for them
to be silent than to talk, to keep counsel than to betray it. But apart
from being shy, Candace's instincts were honorable. She had a lady-like
distaste of interfering with other people's affairs or seeming to pry
into them. She said not a word to any one about this matter of the Polo
Ground, and she tried not to think about it; although it was not in
human nature not to feel a little curiosity, and she caught herself
observing Georgie rather more than usual, though without intending it.

This quickened observation showed her two things: first, that Georgie
had something on her mind; and secondly, that she was determined not to
show it. She laughed and talked rather more than was her custom; and if
the laughter was a little forced, no one else seemed to find it out.
There were times when Candace almost persuaded herself that the whole
thing was the effect of her own imagination, which had exaggerated
something that was perfectly commonplace into importance simply because
she did not understand it; and then again she doubted, and was sure that
Georgie was not like her usual self.

So another week went by, and brought them to September. There was no
sign of autumn as yet. Every leaf was as green and fresh on its bough,
every geranium as bright on its stalk, as if summer were just beginning
instead of just ended. But with the presage which sends the bird
southward long before the cold is felt, and teaches the caterpillar to
roll its cocoon and the squirrel to make ready its winter's nest and
store of nuts, the gay summer crowd began to melt away. Every day
brought a lessened list of arrivals at the hotels; and already there was
that sense of a season over and done with and about to be laid up and
shelved for the winter, which all watering-places know so well, and
which is as a nipping frost to the hopes of landlords and letters of
lodgings. Just why "Finis" should be written