wo sizes too
small, but he managed to get into his voice a tone that was
sufficiently matter-of-fact to blunt the edge of the man's rather
roguish smile. "Let me see your latest gold-mesh bags," he said as
ordinary, everyday people ask to see collar studs.

"Marty!" whispered Joan. "What are you going to do?"

"Oh, that's all right," said Martin. "You can't get along without a
bag, you see."

Half a dozen yellow, insinuating things were laid out on the shining
glass, and with a wonderful smile that was worth all the gold the earth
contained to Martin, Joan made a choice--but not hastily, and not
before she had inspected every other gold bag in the shop. Even at
eighteen she was woman enough to want to be quite certain that she
possessed herself of the very best thing of its kind and would never
have, in future, to feel jealous of one that might lie alluringly in
the window.

"This one," she said finally. "I'm quite sure."

Martin didn't ask the price. It was for his bride. He picked it up and
hung it over her wrist, said "The old address," nodded to the man,--who
was just about to call attention to a tray of diamond brooches,--and
led the way out, feeling at least six feet two.

And as Joan regained the street, she passed another milestone in her
life. To be the proprietor of precisely just such a gold bag had been
one of her steady dreams.

"Marty," she said, "what a darling you are!"

The boy's eyes filled with tears.

VI

It was an evening Martin would never forget.

His suggestion that they should dine at Delmonico's and go to the
Empire to see Ethel Barrymore, accepted with avidity, had stirred Joan
to immediate action. She had hailed a taxi, said, "You'll see me in an
hour, Marty," and disappeared with a quick injunction to have whatever
she bought sent home C.O.D.

It was actually two hours before he saw her again. He thanked his stars
that he had enough money in the bank to meet the checks that he was
required to make out in quick succession. Joan had not wasted time, and
as she got into the car to drive away from that sandwich house of
excited servants, two other milestones had been left behind. She was in
a real evening frock, and all the other things she had bought were silk.

They drove straight home from the theater. Joan was tired. The day had
been long and filled with amazements. She was out in the world at last.
Realization had exceeded expectation for the first time in history.