ucky, and of the larger south. Within that radius he might take
his amusements where he would and it was a matter of some amazement to
those less privileged than he that he made such unspectacular use of
his opportunities. Why, thought they, should Peter Burnett waste his
holidays over a country walk or a copy of Theocritus when he might be
fashionably golfing, dancing a cotillion or flirting at a house party?
Not that Peter neglected these pursuits--being a more astute young man
than his reserved face and tranquil gray eye would indicate--but that
he paused occasionally in the round of them for what his admirers
considered less worthy diversions.

And he was pausing now, as he loitered along the wide, silent street
with its trees in pale, sweet leafage and its old-fashioned houses
showing a prim gayety in the bloom of their garden closes.

He loved this street which stretched the length of the town; beginning
in homes of a humble sort; breaking, a little farther on, into a
feverish importance as it ran along before the doors of the shops;
gathering dignity unto itself as it gained the site of the Shadyville
Seminary; and finally advancing, in the evolution of a social
consciousness, through the select upper end of town, where it spread
itself ingratiatingly beneath the feet of the "prominent citizens" and
clung smugly to well-trimmed hedges instead of skirting shop doors, and
dingy fences. Peter called its course its "rise in life"--so obvious
was its snobbery, its persistent climbing; but his ridicule was the
tolerant ridicule of affection. He knew the street like the nature of
an old friend; he saw it like the face of one; and if he laughed now
and then at its weaknesses, he was none the less certain to enjoy its
company.

To walk along _with_ a street--not merely upon it--was one of his
favorite pastimes, and this afternoon he pursued it in great
contentment, with no thought of what its end should be, nor any
definite desire. For it was his theory that to walk with a street,
divining its moods and discovering its little dramas, was in itself an
adventure, and need not lead to one.

But though he was content to stroll with the street, particularly in
this pleasant neighborhood of its upper end, he soon halted, perforce,
at the greeting: "Peter, you _won't_ pass me by?"

It was a blithe voice that addressed him, pretty and clear, but it was
not the voice of youth; and Peter, glancing toward the veranda whenc