irl home for the holidays. But I am pretty sure
that Fulton missed her during every waking moment. He wrote to her at
least twice a day and sent her many telegrams.

"He knows what a shocking memory I have," she explained; "and he's
afraid that I'll forget him unless constantly reminded. Wouldn't it be
funny if people only existed for us when they were actually present?
Some time I think I'm a little like that about people. Until I really
fell in love, I always loved the boy that was on the spot."

"I've heard that you were an outrageous flirt."

"I didn't know my own mind. _That_ isn't flirting. And when a boy
said he liked me, I was so pleased and flattered that I always said I
liked him, too, and the minute he was out of sight, I'd find that I
didn't."

A few days of hot sunshine had worked wonders with the jasmine. Here
and there the bright golden trumpets were so massed as to give an
effect of bonfires; here and there a vine carried beauty and sweetness
to the top of a tall tree, or festooning among the branches resembled a
string of lights. The humming of bees was steady and insistent like
the roar of far-off surf. And so strong was the mounting of the sap
that already the twigs and branches of deciduous trees appeared as
through a mist of green. The buds on the laurel, swollen and pink,
looked like sugar decorations for wedding cakes. Flashes of brightest
blue and scarlet told of birds recently arrived from still farther
south. Lucy Fulton had just received a telegram from her husband,
saying that in New York a blizzard was raging.

She was in one of her talkative moods. Her voice, clear and boyish and
far-carrying, was so easy and pleasant to listen to that it didn't
matter much what she said. Should I convey an erroneous impression and
one derogatory to a charming companion if I said that she chattered
along like a magpie? She talked about servants, and I gathered that
she had never had any trouble with servants. And I thought, "Why
should you, you who are so friendly, so frank, and so kind?" She gave
me both sides of the argument about bare legs for children versus
stockinged legs. She confessed to an immense passion for so lowly a
dish as stewed prunes, she memorialized upon dogs and horses that had
belonged to her. I learned that her favorite story was the "Brushwood
Boy," that her favorite poem was "The Last Ride Together," and that her
favorite flower was Olea fragrans, the tea-oliv