land sprite, a "nut-brown
mayde," with a remarkably sweet voice.

"I beg your pardon, but can you tell me the way to Professor Salazar's
house? Why" (this with a charming smile and expression as of one
having found an angel of deliverance),--"why, it is--is n't it?--Edgar
Noble of Santa Barbara!"

Edgar, murmuring "Polly Oliver, by Jove!" lifted his hat at once, and
saying, "Excuse me, boys," turned back and, gallantly walked at Polly's
side.

"Why, Miss Polly, this is an unexpected way of meeting you!"

("Very unexpected," thought Polly.) "Is it not, indeed? I wrote you a
note the other day, telling you that we hoped to see you soon in San
Francisco."

"Yes," said Edgar; "I did n't answer it because I intended to present
myself in person to-morrow or Sunday. What are you doing in this
vicinity?" he continued, "or, to put it poetically,

"Pray why are you loitering here, pretty maid?"

"No wonder you ask. I am 'floundering,' at present. I came over to a
Spanish lesson at Professor Salazar's, and I have quite lost my way.
If you will be kind enough to put me on the right road I shall be very
much obliged, though I don't like to keep you from your friends," said
Polly, with a quizzical smile. "You see the professor won't know why I
missed my appointment, and I can't bear to let him think me capable of
neglect; he has been so very kind."

"But you can't walk there. You must have gotten off at the wrong
station; it is quite a mile, even across the fields."

"And what is a mile, sir? Have you forgotten that I am a country
girl?" and she smiled up at him brightly, with a look that challenged
remembrance.

"I remember that you could walk with any of us," said Edgar, thinking
how the freckles had disappeared from Polly's rose-leaf skin, and how
particularly fetching she looked in her brown felt sailor-hat. "Well,
if you really wish to go there, I 'll see you safely to the house and
take you over to San Francisco afterward, as it will be almost dark. I
was going over, at any rate, and one train earlier or later won't make
any difference."

("Perhaps it won't and perhaps it will," thought Polly.) "If you are
sure it won't be too much trouble, then"--

"Not a bit. Excuse me a moment while I run back and explain the matter
to the boys."

The boys did not require any elaborate explanation.

Oh, the power of a winsome face! No better than many other good
things, but surely one of them, and when it i