some evening one of the admirers may be
on the Patten's porch, while another is with you on the bench. And--the
Moon rises beyond it."

I was silent with horor. So that was what he thought of me. Like all the
others, he, to, did not understand. He considered me a Flirt, when my
only Thoughts were serious ones, of imortality and so on.

"You'd better come down now," he said. "I was afraid to warn you until I
saw you climbing the latice. Then I knew you were still young enough to
take a friendly word of Advise."

I got down then and stood before him. He was magnifacent. Is there
anything more beautiful than a tall man with a gleaming expance of dress
shirt? I think not.

But he was staring at me.

"Look here," he said. "I'm afraid I've made a mistake after all. I
thought you were a little girl."

"That needn't worry you. Everybody does," I replied. "I'm seventeen, but
I shall be a mere Child until I come out."

"Oh!" he said.

"One day I am a Child in the nursery," I said. "And the next I'm grown
up and ready to be sold to the highest Bider."

"I beg your pardon, I----"

"But I am as grown up now as I will ever be," I said. "And indeed more
so. I think a great deal now, because I have plenty of Time. But my
sister never thinks at all. She is to busy."

"Suppose we sit on the Bench. The moon is to high to be a menace, and
besides, I am not dangerous. Now, what do you think about?"

"About Life, mostly. But of course there is Death, which is beautiful
but cold. And--one always thinks of Love, doesn't one?"

"Does one?" he asked. I could see he was much interested. As for me, I
dared not consider whom it was who sat beside me, almost touching. That
way lay madness.

"Don't you ever," he said, "reflect on just ordinary things, like
Clothes and so forth?"

I shruged my shoulders.

"I don't get enough new clothes to worry about. Mostly I think of my
Work."

"Work?"

"I am a writer" I said in a low, ernest tone.

"No! How--how amazing. What do you write?"

"I'm on a play now."

"A Comedy?"

"No. A Tradgedy. How can I write a Comedy when a play must always end
in a catastrofe? The book says all plays end in Crisis, Denouement and
Catastrofe."

"I can't beleive it," he said. "But, to tell you a Secret, I never read
any books about Plays."

"We are not all gifted from berth, as you are," I observed, not to
merely please him, but because I considered it the simple Truth.

He pulled out his watch