h interested! Is he in love with you?"

"Mercy, no!"

"I don't believe it. I'm jealous. You know, I've always been more than
half in love with you myself!"

Play for him--the same victorious instinct that had made him touch Miss
Harrison's fingers as she gave him the instrument. And Sidney knew how
it was meant; she smiled into his eyes and drew down her veil briskly.

"Then we'll say at three," she said calmly, and took an orderly and
unflurried departure.

But the little seed of tenderness had taken root. Sidney, passing in the
last week or two from girlhood to womanhood,--outgrowing Joe, had she
only known it, as she had outgrown the Street,--had come that day into
her first contact with a man of the world. True, there was K. Le Moyne.
But K. was now of the Street, of that small world of one dimension that
she was leaving behind her.

She sent him a note at noon, with word to Tillie at Mrs. McKee's to put
it under his plate:--

DEAR MR. LE MOYNE,--I am so excited I can hardly write. Dr. Wilson, the
surgeon, is going to take me through the hospital this afternoon. Wish
me luck. SIDNEY PAGE.

K. read it, and, perhaps because the day was hot and his butter soft
and the other "mealers" irritable with the heat, he ate little or no
luncheon. Before he went out into the sun, he read the note again.
To his jealous eyes came a vision of that excursion to the hospital.
Sidney, all vibrant eagerness, luminous of eye, quick of bosom; and
Wilson, sardonically smiling, amused and interested in spite of himself.
He drew a long breath, and thrust the note in his pocket.

The little house across the way sat square in the sun. The shades of his
windows had been lowered against the heat. K. Le Moyne made an impulsive
movement toward it and checked himself.

As he went down the Street, Wilson's car came around the corner. Le
Moyne moved quietly into the shadow of the church and watched the car go
by.

CHAPTER V

Sidney and K. Le Moyne sat under a tree and talked. In Sidney's lap
lay a small pasteboard box, punched with many holes. It was the day of
releasing Reginald, but she had not yet been able to bring herself to
the point of separation. Now and then a furry nose protruded from one of
the apertures and sniffed the welcome scent of pine and buttonball, red
and white clover, the thousand spicy odors of field and woodland.

"And so," said K. Le Moyne, "you liked it all? It didn't startle you?"

"Well, in one way