waited and waited, expecting trouble, but the trouble,
so far as his grandfather was concerned, did not materialize. He could
not understand it.

But if in that office there was silence concerning the unusual delivery
of the lumber for the Calvin porch, outside there was talk enough and
to spare. Each Welfare Worker talked when she reached home and the story
spread. Small boys shouted after Albert when he walked down the main
street, demanding to know how Ves Young's cart was smellin' these days.
When he entered the post office some one in the crowd was almost sure to
hum, "Here's to the good old whiskey, drink her down." On the train
on the way to the picnic, girls and young fellows had slyly nagged him
about it. The affair and its consequence were the principal causes of
his mood that day; this particular "Portygee streak" was due to it.

The path along the edge of the high bluff entered a grove of scraggy
pitch pines about a mile from the lighthouse and the picnic ground.
Albert stalked gloomily through the shadows of the little grove and
emerged on the other side. There he saw another person ahead of him on
the path. This other person was a girl. He recognized her even at this
distance. She was Helen Kendall.

She and he had not been quite as friendly of late. Not that there was
any unfriendliness between them, but she was teaching in the primary
school and, as her father had not been well, spent most of her evenings
at home. During the early part of the winter he had called occasionally
but, somehow, it had seemed to him that she was not quite as cordial, or
as interested in his society and conversation as she used to be. It was
but a slight indifference on her part, perhaps, but Albert Speranza
was not accustomed to indifference on the part of his feminine
acquaintances. So he did not call again. He had seen her at the picnic
ground and they had spoken, but not at any length.

And he did not care to speak with her now. He had left the pavilion
because of his desire to be alone, and that desire still persisted.
However, she was some little distance ahead of him and he waited in the
edge of the grove until she should go over the crest of the little hill
at the next point.

But she did not go over the crest. Instead, when she reached it, she
walked to the very edge of the bluff and stood there looking off at the
ocean. The sea breeze ruffled her hair and blew her skirts about her and
she made a pretty picture. B