n absent from people either modish or easeful. He felt
himself to be hopelessly outside all this youth and brilliancy and
merriment, and he looked upon it all with a certain wistfulness.

He perceived at length that the strollers were not all of the same
conditions. There were rough, brown cow-boys from La Junta and Cajon,
and miners in rough dress down from the gulches for a night, but
mainly the promenaders appealed to him with elegance of dress and
manner.

Many of the ladies came without hats, which added to the charm of
their eyes and hair. Some of them looked twice at the tall man with
the big mustache and broad hat, who seemed to be watching for some
tardy friend.

As he studied them his memory freshened and he came to understand them
better. He analyzed them into familiar types. This was a banker and
his wife from some small town--the wife fussy and consequential, the
husband coldly dignified. This group was composed of a doctor and his
daughters. Behind them came a merchant from some Nebraska town--he
rough of exterior, his children dainty of dress and very pretty.
Occasionally a group of college-bred girls came up without
escort--alert, self-helpful and serene. They saw Clement at once, and
studied him carefully as they drank their beauty cup at the circular
bench before the spring. All good-looking men had interest to them.

All classes came, a varied stream, yet they were Western, and of the
well-to-do condition for the larger part.

The deft boy swung the glasses of water on his tripartite dipper with
ceaseless splash and clink. There was a pleasant murmur of talk in
which an Eastern listener would have heard the "r" sound
well-defined. There were many couples seated about the pavilion on the
benches and railings. It was all busy yet tranquil. Each loiterer had
fed, had taken his draught of healing water--and this was the hour of
pleasant gossip and repose. Clement fell at last to analyzing the
action of the boy who supplied the water at the pool. He slammed the
glasses into the pool, and set them on the bench with a click as
regular as a pump. Occasionally, however, he was indifferent. With
some of his customers he handled the glasses as if they contained
nectar, thus indicating his generous patrons. Once he stopped and
dipped the glass into the pool with his own hand--a doubtful
action--and extended it with a bow to a young lady who said "thank
you" so sweetly that he blushed and stammered in reply.