, love with flings of ready
speech and friendly greeting, and tennis-rackets and riding-whips
and foils. Robert had been teaching Maud to fence, and she had
fenced too well. Still, Robert had said to himself that he might
some day fall in love with her and marry her. He charged his memory
with the fact that this was a much more rational course than
visiting a girl like Ellen Brewster, so he stayed away in spite of
involuntary turnings of his thoughts in that direction. However, now
when the opportunity had seemed to be fairly forced upon him, what
was he to do? He felt that he was stirred as he had never been
before. The girl's very soul seemed to meet his when she looked up
at him with those serious blue eyes of hers. He knew that there had
never been any like her for him, but he felt as if in another
minute, if they did not drop topics which he might as well have
discussed with another man, this butterfly of femininity which so
delighted him would be beyond his hand. He wanted to keep her to her
rose.

"But the knowledge must not imbitter your life," he said. "It is not
for a little, delicate girl to worry herself over the problems which
are too much for men."

In spite of himself a tenderness had come into his voice. Ellen
looked down and away from him. She trembled.

"It seems to me that the problems of life, like those in the algebra
we studied at school, are for everybody who can read them, whether
men or women," said she, but her voice was unsteady.

"Some of them are for men to read and struggle with for the sake of
the women," said Robert. His voice had a tender inflection. They
were passing a garden full of old-fashioned flowers, bordered with
box. The scent of the box seemed fairly to clamor over the garden
fence, drowning out the smaller fragrances of the flowers, like the
clamor of a mob. Even the sweetness of the mignonette was faintly
perceived.

"How strong the box is," said Ellen, imperceptibly shrinking a
little from Robert.

When they reached the Brewster house Robert said, as kindly as
Granville Joy might have done, "Cannot we get better acquainted,
Miss Brewster? May I call upon you sometimes?"

"I shall be happy to see you," Ellen said, repeating the formula of
welcome like a child, but she knew when she repeated it that it was
very true. After she had parted from young Lloyd, she went into the
sitting-room where were her mother and father, her mother sewing on
a wrapper, her father read