fifty-two,
and she can't hardly get through that door there."

He disregarded the description, for the second bundle was being tied
up fast. He had never seen any one tie so fast, he thought.

"My name's Wesley Dean, and I got a farm in the mountains back of
Frederick. Say--I don't want you to think I'm fresh, but--but--say,
would you go to the movies with me to-night?"

It had come to him in a flash that he could disregard the seat in the
four-o'clock bus and go back to-morrow morning. Sweat stood out on his
forehead and on his curving, clean-shaven upper lip. His boy's eyes
hung on hers, pleading. All the happiness of his life, he felt, waited
for this girl's answer, this little yellow-haired girl whom he had
never seen until a quarter of an hour before.

"We-ell," she hesitated, "I--I don't like to have you think I'd pick
up like this with any fellow that come along----"

"I don't think so!" he broke in fiercely. "If I thought so I'd
never've asked you."

There was a strange breathless moment in the tiny cluttered shop, a
moment such as some men and women are lucky enough to feel once in a
lifetime. It is the moment when the heart's wireless sends its clear
message, "This is my woman" and "This is my man." The flaxen-haired
girl and the dark boy were caught in the golden magic of it and, half
scared, half ecstatic, were thrown into confusion.

"I'll go," she whispered breathlessly. "There's a little park a block
down the street. I'll be there at seven o'clock, by the statue."

"I'll be there, waiting for you," he replied, and because he could not
bear the strange sweet pain that filled him he plunged out of the
shop, jerking the door so that the little bell squealed with surprise.
He had forgotten his packages.

Also, as he remembered presently, he did not know her name.

He was at the feet of the statue in the park by half-past six, and
spent a restless half hour there in the cool spring twilight. Perhaps
she would not come! Perhaps he had frightened her, even as he had
frightened himself, by this inexplicable boldness. Other girls passed
by, and some of them glanced with a coquettish challenge at the
handsome tall youth with his frowning brow. But he did not see them.
Presently--and it was just on the stroke of seven--he saw her coming,
hesitantly, and with an air of complete and proper primness. She had
on a plain little shabby suit and hat, but round her throat was a
string of beads of a blue to match