everlastingly! Hideous things. I was, oh, so restless! You know how you
are at that age."

"I was playing football," said Leonard; "so ought the man to have been,
instead of casting sheep's eyes at you."

"He had nice eyes," said Marjorie, pensively, "and lived next door,
and," she added, as Leonard puffed stolidly at his pipe, "he was
terribly good-looking."

"He was?" said Leonard, raising his eyebrows.

"So tall for his age, and his head always looked as if he were racing
against the wind. He was always rumpling his hair as if in a sort of
frenzy of energy, and he was awkward and graceful at the same time, like
a big puppy who is going to be awfully strong. He was like a big, very
young dog. So energetic, it was almost as if he were hungry."

"He's hungry along with the rest of 'em now, I hope," murmured Leonard.

"His name was Carl von Ehnheim. He lived in a very grand house next
door," continued Marjorie, "and he used to come over and make formal
calls on the pension Mueller. He never looked at me, and whenever I spoke
he looked down or out of the window, and that's how I knew he liked me."

"Most abominable case of puppy love," said Leonard.

"Oh, it was _so_ puppy!" cried Marjorie; "but of course it made the
winter pass less drearily."

"How so--'of course'?"

"Because he would always happen to come down his steps when I came down
mine. Or when I was in the garden walking on the frozen walk with huge
German overshoes on, he would draw aside the curtain of his house and
stand there pretending not to see me until I bowed, and then he would
smile and pretend he had just noticed me. And then, when Christmas came,
all the girls went home, and Frau Mueller and I were asked over to his
house to spend the day. Did you ever spend a Christmas in Germany, Len,
dear?"

"No, but I hope to some day."

"It's so nice, it's like Christmas in a book. He used to come into the
garden after that, and we'd play together. And we read German
lesson-books in the summer-house. And then, sometimes, for no reason at
all, we would run around the summer-house until we were all out of
breath, and had messed up all the paths. One day he had to go away. It
was time for him to go into the army to be made an officer, and I didn't
see him for so long, and I forgot all about him, nearly. I would have if
I hadn't been so lonely."

"Humph!" said Leonard; and Marjorie squeezed his fingers.

"Aren't you just a little bit jealous?" she p