rn for her the apt
description, "peaches and cream." She was a beauty in the regularity of
her features; and, if for no other reason, she was a beauty in the mere
delicacy of the lines on which she was moulded. Quiet, low-voiced,
stately, and dignified, she somehow had the knack of dress, and but
befitted her beauty and dignity with anything she put on. Withal, she
was sheerly feminine, tender and soft and clinging, with the smouldering
passion of the mate and the motherliness of the woman. But this side of
her nature had lain dormant through the years, waiting for the mate to
appear.

Then Joe came into Silverstein's shop one hot Saturday afternoon to cool
himself with ice-cream soda. She had not noticed his entrance, being
busy with one other customer, an urchin of six or seven who gravely
analyzed his desires before the show-case wherein truly generous and
marvellous candy creations reposed under a cardboard announcement, "Five
for Five Cents."

She had heard, "Ice-cream soda, please," and had herself asked, "What
flavor?" without seeing his face. For that matter, it was not a custom
of hers to notice young men. There was something about them she did not
understand. The way they looked at her made her uncomfortable, she knew
not why; while there was an uncouthness and roughness about them that did
not please her. As yet, her imagination had been untouched by man. The
young fellows she had seen had held no lure for her, had been without
meaning to her. In short, had she been asked to give one reason for the
existence of men on the earth, she would have been nonplussed for a
reply.

As she emptied the measure of ice-cream into the glass, her casual glance
rested on Joe's face, and she experienced on the instant a pleasant
feeling of satisfaction. The next instant his eyes were upon her face,
her eyes had dropped, and she was turning away toward the soda fountain.
But at the fountain, filling the glass, she was impelled to look at him
again--but for no more than an instant, for this time she found his eyes
already upon her, waiting to meet hers, while on his face was a frankness
of interest that caused her quickly to look away.

That such pleasingness would reside for her in any man astonished her.
"What a pretty boy," she thought to herself, innocently and instinctively
trying to ward off the power to hold and draw her that lay behind the
mere prettiness. "Besides, he isn't pretty," she thought, as she