hful Albert in that kiss until she had achieved the effect of realism
that she thought the scene demanded. But when, on the school sleighing
parties and hay rides the boy next her slipped a wooden and uncertain
arm about her waist while they all were singing "Jingle Bells, Jingle
Bells," and "Good Night Ladies," and "Merrily We Roll Along," she sat
up stiffly and unyieldingly until the arm, discouraged, withdrew to its
normal position. Which two instances are quoted as being of a piece with
what Winnebago termed her queerness.

Not that Fanny Brandeis went beauless through school. On the contrary,
she always had some one to carry her books, and to take her to the
school parties and home from the Friday night debating society meetings.
Her first love affair turned out disastrously. She was twelve, and she
chose as the object of her affections a bullet-headed boy named Simpson.
One morning, as the last bell rang and they were taking their seats,
Fanny passed his desk and gave his coarse and stubbly hair a tweak. It
was really a love tweak, and intended to be playful, but she probably
put more fervor into it than she knew. It brought the tears of pain
to his eyes, and he turned and called her the name at which she shrank
back, horrified. Her shock and unbelief must have been stamped on her
face, for the boy, still smarting, had snarled, "Ya-as, I mean it."

It was strange how she remembered that incident years after she had
forgotten important happenings in her life. Clarence Heyl, whose very
existence you will have failed to remember, used to hover about her
uncertainly, always looking as if he would like to walk home with her,
but never summoning the courage to do it. They were graduated from the
grammar school together, and Clarence solemnly read a graduation essay
entitled "Where is the Horse?" Automobiles were just beginning to
flash plentifully up and down Elm Street. Clarence had always been
what Winnebago termed sickly, in spite of his mother's noodle soup, and
coddling. He was sent West, to Colorado, or to a ranch in Wyoming, Fanny
was not quite sure which, perhaps because she was not interested. He had
come over one afternoon to bid her good-by, and had dangled about the
front porch until she went into the house and shut the door.

When she was sixteen there was a blond German boy whose taciturnity
attracted her volubility and vivacity. She mistook his stolidness for
depth, and it was a long time before she real