Bobby.

"If you write to me."

"Of course I will write to you. And you'll send me your picture, won't
you? You said you would."

"I don't believe I have any," demurred Celia; "and mamma has them all;
and they're very comspensive."

"I'll give you one of mine," offered Bobby, "if I have to get it from
the album. Please, Celia."

"I'll see," said she.

They were moving again slowly beneath the trees.

Bobby looked up the street; he looked back. He turned swiftly to her.

"Celia," he asked, "may I kiss you?"

"Yes," said Celia steadily.

She stopped short, looking straight ahead. Bobby leaned over and his
lips just touched her cool smooth cheek. They walked on in silence. The
next day Celia was gone.

VII

UNTIL THE LAST SHOT

There remained as consolation after this heartbreaking defection but
two interesting things in life--the printing press and the Flobert
Rifle. Somehow the week dragged through until Sunday, when Bobby duly
scrubbed and dressed, had to go to church with his father and mother.
Bobby, to tell the truth, did not care very much for church. Always his
glance was straying to a single upper-section of one of the windows,
which, being tipped inward at the bottom, permitted him a glimpse of
green leaves flushed with sunlight. A very joyous bird emphasized the
difference between the bright world and this dim, decorous interior with
its faint church aroma compounded of morocco leather, flowers, and the
odour of Sunday garments. Only when the four ushers tiptoed about with
the collection boxes on the end of handles, like exaggerated
corn-poppers, did the lethargy into which he had fallen break for a
moment. The irregular passage of the receptacle from one to another was
at least a motion not ordered in the deliberate rhythm of decorum; and
the clink of the money was pleasantly removed from the soporific. Bobby
gazed with awe at the coins as they passed beneath his little nose. He
supposed there must be enough of them to buy the Flobert Rifle.

The thought gave him a pleasant little shock. It had never occurred to
him that probably the Flobert Rifle had a price. It had seemed so
passionately to be desired as to belong to the category of the
inaccessible--like Mr. Orde's revolver on the top shelf of the closet,
or unlimited ice cream, or the curios locked behind the glass in Auntie
Kate's cabinet. Now the revelation almost stopped his heart.

"Perhaps it doesn't cost more'n a thousand do