ped it."

"Well, now we must part. I must go home at once," said Alice. "It's
perfectly insane."

"Oh no, not yet; not till we've said something else; not till we've
changed the subject."

"What subject?"

"Miss Anderson."

Alice laughed and blushed, but she was not vexed. She liked to have him
understand her. "Well, now," she said, as if that were the next thing,
"I'm going to cross here at once and walk up the other pavement, and
you must go back through the Garden; or else I shall never get away from
you."

"May I look over at you?"

"You may glance, but you needn't expect me to return your glance."

"Oh no."

"And I want you to take the very first Cambridge car that comes along. I
command you to."

"I thought you wanted me to do the commanding."

"So I do--in essentials. If you command me not to cry when I get home, I
won't."

She looked at him with an ecstasy of self-sacrifice in her eyes.

"Ah, I sha'n't do that. I can't tell what would open. But--Alice!"

"Well, what?" She drifted closely to him, and looked fondly up into his
face. In walking they had insensibly drawn nearer together, and she had
been obliged constantly to put space between them. Now, standing at the
corner of Arlington Street, and looking tentatively across Beacon, she
abandoned all precautions.

"What! I forget. Oh yes! I love you!"

"But you said that before, dearest!"

"Yes; but just now it struck me as a very novel idea. What if your
mother shouldn't like the idea?"

"Nonsense! you know she perfectly idolises you. She did from the first.
And doesn't she know how I've begin behaving about you ever since
I--lost you?"

"How have you behaved? Do tell me, Alice?"

"Some time; not now," she said; and with something that was like a gasp,
and threatened to be a sob, she suddenly whipped across the road. He
walked back to Charles Street by the Garden path, keeping abreast of
her, and not losing sight of her for a moment, except when the bulk of
a string team watering at the trough beside the pavement intervened. He
hurried by, and when he had passed it he found himself exactly abreast
of her again. Her face was turned toward him; they exchanged a smile,
lost in space. At the corner of Charles Street he deliberately crossed
over to her.

"O dearest love! why did you come?" she implored.

"Because you signed to me."

"I hoped you wouldn't see it. If we're both to be so weak as this, what
are we going to do?"

"But I'