er that Christmas when I was in boarding-school and you were called
South on business? I wanted to visit Nancy Long, but you wouldn't let me
because you didn't like her father; and you got Mrs. Jerymn Hilliard whom
I had never set eyes on to invite me there? I didn't want to go, and you
said I must, and was perfectly horrid about it?--you remember that?'

Mr. Wilder grunted.

'Yes, I see you do. And you remember how, with my usual sweetness, I
finally gave way? Well, Dad, you never knew the reason. The Yale Glee
Club came to Westfield that year just before the holidays began, and Miss
Jane let everybody go to the concert whose deportment had been above
eighty--that of course included me.

'Well, we all went, and we all fell in love--in a body--with a sophomore
who played the banjo and sang negro songs. He had lovely dark
gazelle-like eyes, and he sang funny songs without smiling. The whole
school raved about him all the way home; we cut his picture out of the
programme and pasted in the front of our watches. His name, father'--she
paused dramatically--'was Jerymn Hilliard Junior!'

'I sat up half the night writing diplomatic letters to you and Mrs.
Hilliard; and the next day when it got around that I was actually going
to visit in his house--well, I was the most popular girl in school. I was
sixteen years old then; I wore sailor suits and my hair was braided down
my back. Probably I did look young; and then Nannie, whom I was
supposedly visiting, was only fifteen. There were a lot of cousins in the
house besides all the little Hilliards, and what do you think? They made
the children eat in the school-room! I never saw him until Christmas
night; then when we were introduced, he shook my hand in a listless sort
of way, said "How d'y' do?" and forgot all about me. He went off with the
Glee Club the next day, and I only saw him once more.

'We were playing blind man's buff in the school-room; I had just been
caught by the hair. It hurt and I was squealing. Everybody else was
clapping and laughing, when suddenly the door burst open and there stood
Jerry Junior! He looked straight at me and growled----

'"What are you kids making such an infernal racket about?"'

She shut her eyes.

'Aunt Hazel, Dad, just think. He was my first love. His picture was at
that moment in a locket around my neck. And he called me a _kid_!'

'And you've never seen him since?' Miss Hazel's smile expressed amused
indulgence.

Constance sho