and that the two could understand together. He
was but a foolish boy in this, his delicious period of probation.

And she was but a loving woman who had given her heart to him, who
understood him, and who, in a woman's way, was of his mood. It was an
idyl of the clever.

At the more modest restaurants were the lunches of these two the most
delightful. He would, somehow, find queer little places where all was
clean and the cooking good, but far away from the haunts of men, that
is, far away from the haunts of the men and women they knew, and there
the two would have great feasts. At one unpretending place he had one
day found pork and beans,--not the molasses-colored abomination
ordinarily sold in town, but the white beans, baked in a deep pan, with
the slashed piece of pork browned in the middle of the dish,--and this
place became a great resort for them. They would sit at a small table,
and have the beans brought on, and mustard of the sharpest and
shrewdest, and dishes such as formed a halo about the beans, which were
the central figure, and then would they eat, being healthy, and look
into each other's face, and riot in present happiness, having certain
brains and being in love. The very rudeness of it pleased him mightily.

One evening they had dined together. She had been shopping or doing
what it is that women do down town of afternoons, and he had met her at
the close of business, and they had eaten together as usual, and when
they emerged into the open air it was but to learn that the mercury had
dropped some few degrees, and that the jacket she wore was light for
the occasion. She became cold before her home was reached, and he was
troubled.

"I wish it were months later," he said.

"Why?"

"Because then I could care for you, and see to it that you did not
suffer from the chill. I don't know though, even with the admirable
supervision I'd have over you then, whether you would take proper care
of yourself, my Brownie. What would you do?"

"I don't know quite," she answered. "I think I should want to get
pretty near the grate. I'd pull one of the tiger-skins or bear-skins
on the rug, very close to the fire, and I'd curl down on the fur and
turn about a little, and get very warm."

He assumed a lofty air, and announced that he was under the impression
that, when chilled, she would do nothing of the sort! He had his own
ideas regarding the treatment of chills of small, brown women. What
woul