light, what her eyes had sometimes fleetingly intimated she did
perceive in part--the difference between William and such every-day,
rather well-meaning, fairly good-hearted people as Joe Bullitt, Wallace
Banks, Johnnie Watson, and others. Yes, when she came to read "In
Dream," and to "look back upon it all," she would surely know--at last!

And then, when the future four long years (while receiving his
education) had passed, he would go to her. He would go to her, and
she would take him by the hand, and lead him to her father, and say,
"Father, this is William."

But William would turn to her, and, with the old, dancing light in his
eyes, "No, Lola," he would say, "not William, but Ickle Boy Baxter!
Always and always, just that for you; oh, my dear!"

And then, as in story and film and farce and the pleasanter kinds of
drama, her father would say, with kindly raillery, "Well, when you two
young people get through, you'll find me in the library, where I have a
pretty good BUSINESS proposition to lay before YOU, young man!"

And when the white-waistcoated, white-side-burned old man had,
chuckling, left the room, William would slowly lift his arms; but Lola
would move back from him a step--only a step--and after laying a finger
archly upon her lips to check him, "Wait, sir!" she would say. "I have a
question to ask you, sir!"

"What question, Lola?"

"THIS question, sir!" she would reply. "In all that summer, sir, so long
ago, why did you never tell me what you WERE, until I had gone away and
it was too late to show you what I felt? Ah, Ickle Boy Baxter, I never
understood until I looked back upon it all, after I had read 'In Dream,'
on the train that day! THEN I KNEW!" "And now, Lola?" William would say.
"Do you understand me, NOW?"

Shyly she would advance the one short step she had put between
them, while he, with lifted, yearning arms, this time destined to no
disappointment----

At so vital a moment did Mrs. Baxter knock at his door and consoling
reverie cease to minister unto William. Out of the rosy sky he dropped,
falling miles in an instant, landing with a bump. He started, placed the
sacred box out of sight, and spoke gruffly.

"What you want?"

"I'm not coming in, Willie," said his mother. "I just wanted to know--I
thought maybe you were looking out of the window and noticed where those
children went."

"What children?"

"Jane and that little girl from across the street--Kirsted, her name
must