blooming, buoyant, and chattering
about the events of the afternoon. She had had her first heart-felt
good time of the probationary year. For once, time had not dragged.
Time had stood excitingly, exhilaratingly still. She had forgotten to
scratch off the day.

Things went better after that. Twice a week, rain or shine, she was
crew of the young gentleman's knockabout. Often they went for practice
sails. Sometimes they took Jock and Hurry. In hot weather they wore
bathing suits. The young gentleman? He was to be a Yale senior, come
autumn. He rowed on the Yale crew. My! you should have seen his arms
and legs--so strong and so brown, so becoming to his dark blue bathing
suit. His hair was so sunburnt that it looked like molasses candy. He
could stay in the water all day and fetch from the bottom anything that
was thrown in for him. Sometimes he came to meals. He was very quiet
and shy. He blushed a good deal. And there was a weight on his mind.
He had a condition to make up--political economy. He could hold Jock
and Hurry out at arm's length, one in each hand, but the weight on his
mind was too much for him. Every time the Fultons mentioned it to him,
he groaned. He was truly comical when he groaned. Toward autumn he
began to get gloomy. Summer was over, college would open. No more
sails; no more Mrs. Fulton. Below stairs one knew that he was in love
with Mrs. Fulton. How? Well, when one let him out at the front door,
he always drew in a sigh that he held all the way to the front gate.
One waited to hear him let it out. It would have blown out a gas jet
across a good-sized room. There were other ways of telling. And since
the forty-ninth day that was not a day, no one had heard Mrs. Fulton
crying.

He came to say good-by. One never knew just what happened. They were
in the front hall. Suddenly the front door must have opened. Fulton
must have come in, for suddenly one heard his laugh. It was the
strangest laugh in the world, full of joy, full of laughter, and full
of scorn.

He saw the young gentleman to the front gate. He clapped the young
gentleman on the back, and said (the parlor maid had heard); "Don't
worry! It's all right! Don't make a mountain out of a mole-hill!" and
then in a different voice, "Bless you, my son!"

Then he had come back to the house still laughing, and one heard him
shouting, "Where are you, Lucy? Come here! The game's up now! You
must see that for yo