e the Baldwin apples, and leave the
red skins on the slices--that makes it look prettiest."

She peeped into the small kitchen mirror as she went by, the mirror whose
presence was designed to point out to Mary Ann that her rough red locks
might now and then need smoothing. Sally's own hair was the source of
considerable bother at present, it having reached that stage, in its
growth since her fever, when it was neither short nor long, and called
for much skill in arrangement. She tucked in a stray curl or two, gave a
perk to the black bow, stood on her tip-toes to make sure that the silk
knot which fastened her sailor collar was in trim shape, and felt of the
crisp strings which tied her decidedly coquettish apron, to ascertain
that that bow was also snug. Then she looked round at Mary Ann, and
caught that young person eyeing her slyly, but with great admiration.
Sally laughed, and Mary Ann giggled. Then the latter glanced
significantly out of the kitchen window toward the barn, whence a tall
figure was issuing with its arms full of books and magazines.

"I guess I'd know, Miss Sally," ventured Mary Ann, "who was comin' if I
didn't see for myself. Apple-fry, an' you primpin' up like that when you
don't need it at all, bein' always tidy--"

"Mary, I'm surprised at you," said Sally severely, and walked out of
the kitchen with her head up. But she had laughed, and Mary Ann was
not afraid.

"Ridiculous!" said Sally to herself, in the hall. "I shall never look in
that kitchen glass again, when anybody is here. As if I ever did any
special 'primpin'' for an old friend like Jarvis! Girls like that are
always thinking silly things." And she walked on to the hall door, of
half a mind not to open it after all, lest Jarvis himself think his
welcome too eager. Yet, as she always did open it for him, or for any
other of their special friends whom she chanced to see approaching, she
promptly discarded this line of conduct as absurd, and threw the door
wide with the hospitable sweep to which he was so accustomed that he
would have been surprised and puzzled at its absence.

He looked at her over his armful of books, his face red with the sting of
the sharp January air, his eyes keen through the eye-glasses astride his
nose. Goggles were now a thing of the past, but the eyeglasses, their
lenses thick with the combination of formulae which had ruled their
grinding, were a permanent necessity. It was the first time Sally had
seen him