ne evening, when a young man came up and paused, smiling, before her.
At first glance, and in the uncertain moonlight, she thought him a
stranger, but a second look revealed his sturdy identity.

"Why, _Ted_!"

And Ted he was; a Ted grown to a fine, vigorous manliness--the
manliness of a thoroughly healthy body and a cheerful, literal mind.
It was obvious at once that there was not a subtlety in him; that, in
his early maturity, he was of the same substantial quality that he had
been as a child.

Sheila had not seen him for a long time--as time is measured at
nineteen--for during his first year at college, his family had removed
to Lexington, and neither they nor he had ever returned. But it seemed
as natural to her to have him there as if they had parted only
yesterday, as natural to have him, and as natural to admire him. She
had admired him devoutly when she was a little girl, though she had
sometimes had disconcerting glimpses of his limitations. And she
admired him now. Instantly she felt that splendid, radiant materialism
of his as a charm.

She walked up the path to the house at his side, in a flutter of
girlish delight--all sex, all softness, the weaker, the submissive
creature. So he had dominated her in the past--except in her rare,
"queer" moments when the wings of her quick fancy had lifted her on
some flight beyond his reach. Her wings did not lift her now, however;
they were folded so meekly against her shoulders that they might as
well not have been there at all.

They sat down on the veranda together, and a climbing rose shook down a
shower of night fragrance upon them, and the moonlight streamed over
their faces as if with the intent to glorify each to the other.

Mrs. Caldwell was playing whist at the house next door, so Sheila and
Ted were there alone, save for the cook's tuneful presence in the
kitchen. Her song floated out to them in her warm, caressing negro
voice--"Weep no mo', my lady! Oh, weep no mo' to-day!" And suddenly
Sheila felt that she would never weep again--life was such a joyous
thing!

Ted sat on a step at her feet, and he leaned his head back against a
pillar of the veranda as he talked. She noticed how crisp and strong
his fair hair was, and the sense of his vitality weighed upon her like
a compelling hand.

He was telling her what had brought him back. The editorship of the
_Shadyville Star_, the town's semi-weekly paper--the editorship and
part ownership in f