ast call to the dining-car, Minnie," he said. "'Will you--won't
you--will you--won't you--will you join the dance?'"

"I haven't any reason for changing my plans," I retorted. "I promised
the old doctor to stick by the place, and I'm sticking."

"As the man said when he sat down on the flypaper. You're going by your
heart, Minnie, and not by your head, and in this toss, heads win."

But with my new puffs on the back of my head, and my letter in my
pocket, I wasn't easy to discourage. Thoburn shouldered his pick and,
headed by Doctor Barnes, the ice-cutters started out in single file.
As they passed the news stand Doctor Barnes glanced at me, and my heart
almost stopped.

"Do they--is it a match?" he asked, with his eyes on mine.

I couldn't speak, but I nodded "yes," and all that afternoon I could
see the wonderful smile that lit up his face as he went out. It made him
almost good-looking. Oh, there's nothing like love, especially if you've
waited long enough to be hungry for it, and not spoiled your taste for
it by a bite here and a piece of a heart there, beforehand, so to speak.

Miss Cobb stopped at the news stand on her way to the gymnasium. She
was a homely woman at any time, and in her bloomers she looked like a
soup-bone. Under ordinary circumstances she'd have seen the puffs from
the staircase and have asked what they cost and told me they didn't
match, in one breath. But she had something else on her mind. She padded
over to the counter in her gym shoes, and for once she'd forgotten her
legs.

"May I speak to you, Minnie?" she asked.

"You mostly do," I said. "There isn't a new rule about speaking, is
there?"

"This is important, Minnie," she said, rolling her eyes around as she
always did when she was excited. "I'm in such a state of ex--I see you
bought the puffs! Perhaps you will lend them to me if we arrange for a
country dance."

"They don't match," I objected. "They--they wouldn't look natural, Miss
Cobb."

"They don't look natural on you, either. Do you suppose anybody believes
that the Lord sent you hair in seventeen rows of pipes, so that, red as
it is, it looks like an instantaneous water-heater?"

"I'm not lending them," I said firmly. It would have been like lending
an engagement ring, to my mind. Miss Cobb was not offended. She went at
once to what had brought her, and bent over the counter.

"Where's the Summers woman?" she asked.

"In the gym. She's made herself a new gym suit o