mean to me to give all this up. And besides, there
was something very important. At the time I wrote that letter mentioning
poor Mr. Crum to the family, Noble, I hadn't--I hadn't----" She paused,
visibly in some distress. "I hadn't----"

"You hadn't what?" he cried.

"I hadn't met his mother!"

Noble leaped to his feet. "Julia! You aren't--you aren't engaged?"

"I am not," she answered decisively. "If I ever was--in the slightest--I
certainly am not now."

Poor Noble was transfigured. He struggled; making half-formed gestures,
speaking half-made words. A rapture glowed upon him.

"Julia--Julia----" He choked. "Julia, promise me something. Will you
promise me something? Julia, promise to promise me something."

"I will," she said quickly. "What do you want me to do?"

Then he saw that it was his time to speak; that this was the moment for
him to dare everything and ask for the utmost he could hope from her.

"Give me your word!" he said, still radiantly struggling. "Give me your
word--your word--your word and your sacred promise, Julia--that you'll
never be engaged to anybody at all!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

At six minutes after four o'clock on the second afternoon following
Julia's return, Noble Dill closed his own gate behind him and set forth
upon the four-minute walk that would bring him to Julia's. He wore a bit
of scarlet geranium in the buttonhole of his new light overcoat; he
flourished a new walking-stick and new grey gloves. As for his
expression, he might have been a bridegroom.

Passing the mouth of an alley, as he swung along the street, he was
aware of a commotion, of missiles hurled and voices clashed. In this
alley there was a discord: passion and mockery were here inimically
intermingled.

Casting _a_ glance that way, Noble could see but one person; a boy of
fourteen who looked through a crack in a board fence, steadfastly
keeping an eye to this aperture and as continuously calling through it,
holding his head to a level for this purpose, but at the same time
dancing--and dancing tauntingly, it was conveyed--with the other parts
of his body. His voice was now sweet, now piercing, and again far too
dulcet with the overkindness of burlesque; and if, as it seemed, he was
unburdening his spleen, his spleen was a powerful one and gorged. He
appeared to be in a torment of tormenting; and his success was proved by
the pounding of bricks, parts of bricks and rocks of size upon the other
si