n his eyes.

That night he came over to say good-bye before taking his train out for
Ishpeming. He and Pearlie strolled down as far as the park and back
again.

"I didn't eat any supper," said Sam. "It would have been sacrilege,
after that dinner of yours. Honestly, I don't know how to thank you,
being so good to a stranger like me. When I come back next trip, I
expect to have the Kid with me, and I want her to meet you, by George!
She's a winner and a pippin, but she wouldn't know whether a porterhouse
was stewed or frapped. I'll tell her about you, you bet. In the
meantime, if there's anything I can do for you, I'm yours to command."

Pearlie turned to him suddenly. "You see that clump of thick shadows
ahead of us, where those big trees stand in front of our house?"

"Sure," replied Sam.

"Well, when we step into that deepest, blackest shadow, right in front of
our porch, I want you to reach up, and put your arm around me and kiss me
on the mouth, just once. And when you get back to New York you can tell
your girl I asked you to."

There broke from him a little involuntary exclamation. It might have
been of pity, and it might have been of surprise. It had in it something
of both, but nothing of mirth. And as they stepped into the depths of
the soft black shadows he took off his smart straw sailor, which was so
different from the sailors that the boys in our town wear. And there was
in the gesture something of reverence.

Millie Whitcomb didn't like the story of the homely heroine, after all.
She says that a steady diet of such literary fare would give her blue
indigestion. Also she objects on the ground that no one got
married--that is, the heroine didn't. And she says that a heroine who
does not get married isn't a heroine at all. She thinks she prefers the
pink-cheeked, goddess kind, in the end.

XI

SUN DRIED

There come those times in the life of every woman when she feels that she
must wash her hair at once. And then she does it. The feeling may come
upon her suddenly, without warning, at any hour of the day or night; or
its approach may be slow and insidious, so that the victim does not at
first realize what it is that fills her with that sensation of unrest.
But once in the clutches of the idea she knows no happiness, no peace,
until she has donned a kimono, gathered up two bath towels, a spray, and
the green soap, and she breathes again only when, head dripping, she
make