re of you. If you will give Katie, our maid, twenty-five cents a week,
she'll do your washing and not tear your things to ribbons. And I'll
mend them."

Sheer stupefaction was K. Le Moyne's. After a moment:--

"You're really rather wonderful, Miss Page. Here am I, lodged, fed,
washed, ironed, and mended for seven dollars and seventy-five cents a
week!"

"I hope," said Sidney severely, "that you'll put what you save in the
bank."

He was still somewhat dazed when he went up the narrow staircase to
his swept and garnished room. Never, in all of a life that had been
active,--until recently,--had he been so conscious of friendliness and
kindly interest. He expanded under it. Some of the tired lines left his
face. Under the gas chandelier, he straightened and threw out his arms.
Then he reached down into his coat pocket and drew out a wide-awake and
suspicious Reginald.

"Good-night, Reggie!" he said. "Good-night, old top!" He hardly
recognized his own voice. It was quite cheerful, although the little
room was hot, and although, when he stood, he had a perilous feeling
that the ceiling was close above. He deposited Reginald carefully on
the floor in front of the bureau, and the squirrel, after eyeing him,
retreated to its nest.

It was late when K. Le Moyne retired to bed. Wrapped in a paper and
securely tied for the morning's disposal, was considerable masculine
underclothing, ragged and buttonless. Not for worlds would he have had
Sidney discover his threadbare inner condition. "New underwear for yours
tomorrow, K. Le Moyne," he said to himself, as he unknotted his cravat.
"New underwear, and something besides K. for a first name."

He pondered over that for a time, taking off his shoes slowly and
thinking hard. "Kenneth, King, Kerr--" None of them appealed to him.
And, after all, what did it matter? The old heaviness came over him.

He dropped a shoe, and Reginald, who had gained enough courage to emerge
and sit upright on the fender, fell over backward.

Sidney did not sleep much that night. She lay awake, gazing into the
scented darkness, her arms under her head. Love had come into her life
at last. A man--only Joe, of course, but it was not the boy himself, but
what he stood for, that thrilled her had asked her to be his wife.

In her little back room, with the sweetness of the tree blossoms
stealing through the open window, Sidney faced the great mystery of life
and love, and flung out warm young arms. Joe