a little uneasily. It seemed that here was a
man of suspicious nature, though, of course, Joe Bullitt's shallow talk
about getting an overcoat pressed before winter would not have imposed
upon anybody. However, William felt strongly that the private life of
the customers of a store should not be pried into and speculated about
by employees, and he was conscious of a distaste for this clerk.

Nevertheless, it was with a lighter heart that he left his overcoat
behind him and stepped out of the side door of the drug-store. That
brought him within sight of the gaily dressed young people, about thirty
in number, gathered upon the small lawn beside Mr. Parcher's house.

Miss Pratt stood among them, in heliotrope and white, Flopit nestling in
her arms. She was encircled by girls who were enthusiastically caressing
the bored and blinking Flopit; and when William beheld this charming
group, his breath became eccentric, his knee-caps became cold and
convulsive, his neck became hot, and he broke into a light perspiration.

She saw him! The small blonde head and the delirious little fluffy hat
above it shimmered a nod to him. Then his mouth fell unconsciously open,
and his eyes grew glassy with the intensity of meaning he put into
the silent response he sent across the picket fence and through the
interstices of the intervening group. Pressing with his elbow upon the
package of cigarettes in his pocket, he murmured, inaudibly, "My Little
Sweetheart, always for you!"--a repetition of his vow that, come what
might, he would forever remain a loyal smoker of that symbolic brand. In
fact, William's mental condition had never shown one moment's turn for
the better since the fateful day of the distracting visitor's arrival.

Mr. Johnnie Watson and Mr. Joe Bullitt met him at the gate and offered
him hearty greeting. All bickering and dissension among these three had
passed. The lady was so wondrous impartial that, as time went on, the
sufferers had come to be drawn together, rather than thrust asunder, by
their common feeling. It had grown to be a bond uniting them; they
were not so much rivals as ardent novices serving a single altar, each
worshiping there without visible gain over the other. Each had even come
to possess, in the eyes of his two fellows, almost a sacredness as a
sharer in the celestial glamor; they were tender one with another. They
were in the last stages.

Johnnie Watson had with him to-day a visitor of his own--a v