about the way you act; you're good enough for _me_! Julie," his voice
sank again, "Julie, won't you let me pick out a little flat somewheres?
Pomeroy said I could have any one of the old squares for nothing; we
could get some rugs and chairs from the People's Easy Payment Company.
Just you and me, Julie; what do you think?"

"I-I'd like to have a cute little house," said Julia, with a shaky
smile.

"Sure you would! And a garden--"

"Oh, I'd love a little garden!" The girl smiled again.

"Well, then, why not, Julia?"

She looked at him obliquely.

"Suppose I stopped loving you, Mark?"

Mark gave a great laugh.

"Once I have you, Ju, I'll risk it!"

Child that she was, a glimpse of that complete possession stained her
cheeks crimson.

"I have to go down to Mama in Santa Clara next week," she submitted
awkwardly.

"Well, go down. But--how about New Year's, Julie? Will you marry me
then?"

Julia got up, and they walked away across the soft green of the grass.

"I don't honestly know what I want to do, Mark," she said a little
drearily. "I'm not crazy to go to Santa Clara, and yet it's something
awful--living at my grandmother's house! I'd like to kill my
grandfather, I know that. He's the meanest old man I ever saw. I suppose
I could keep at Artheris for an engagement--he's awfully decent--but now
that Rose and Connie have gone, I have to go round alone, and--it isn't
that I'm afraid of anything, but I simply don't seem to care any more! I
don't believe I want to be an actress. Artheris offered me small parts
with the Sacramento Star Stock, playing fourteen weeks and twenty plays,
this winter, but I thought of getting up there, and having to hunt up a
boarding-house--" Her voice sank indifferently. "I don't believe I'd
take anything less than ingenue," she added presently. "Florence Pitt
played ingenue in stock when she was only fifteen!"

"You could work up, Ju," Mark suggested, honestly anxious to console.

"Yes, the way Connie and Rose have!" the girl answered dryly. "Con's
been in the business six years and Rose nine!" Her eyes travelled the
blue spaces of the summer sky. "I wish I could go to New York," she said
vaguely.

"They say New York is jam-packed with girls hanging round theatrical
agencies," Mark submitted, to which Julia answered with a dispirited, "I
know!"

George had promised to send five dollars each week to old Mrs. Cox for
Julia's board, so that her stay in the Mission Street hou