And when she pointed out the opportuneness of the time,
that the entrance examinations to high school began on the following
Monday, he promptly volunteered that he would take them.

Then she played and sang to him, while he gazed with hungry yearning at
her, drinking in her loveliness and marvelling that there should not be a
hundred suitors listening there and longing for her as he listened and
longed.

CHAPTER X

He stopped to dinner that evening, and, much to Ruth's satisfaction, made
a favorable impression on her father. They talked about the sea as a
career, a subject which Martin had at his finger-ends, and Mr. Morse
remarked afterward that he seemed a very clear-headed young man. In his
avoidance of slang and his search after right words, Martin was compelled
to talk slowly, which enabled him to find the best thoughts that were in
him. He was more at ease than that first night at dinner, nearly a year
before, and his shyness and modesty even commended him to Mrs. Morse, who
was pleased at his manifest improvement.

"He is the first man that ever drew passing notice from Ruth," she told
her husband. "She has been so singularly backward where men are
concerned that I have been worried greatly."

Mr. Morse looked at his wife curiously.

"You mean to use this young sailor to wake her up?" he questioned.

"I mean that she is not to die an old maid if I can help it," was the
answer. "If this young Eden can arouse her interest in mankind in
general, it will be a good thing."

"A very good thing," he commented. "But suppose,--and we must suppose,
sometimes, my dear,--suppose he arouses her interest too particularly in
him?"

"Impossible," Mrs. Morse laughed. "She is three years older than he,
and, besides, it is impossible. Nothing will ever come of it. Trust
that to me."

And so Martin's role was arranged for him, while he, led on by Arthur and
Norman, was meditating an extravagance. They were going out for a ride
into the hills Sunday morning on their wheels, which did not interest
Martin until he learned that Ruth, too, rode a wheel and was going along.
He did not ride, nor own a wheel, but if Ruth rode, it was up to him to
begin, was his decision; and when he said good night, he stopped in at a
cyclery on his way home and spent forty dollars for a wheel. It was more
than a month's hard-earned wages, and it reduced his stock of money
amazingly; but when he added the hundred dollars he