or he was traveling
on air.

That evening at supper his radiant appearance caused comment.

"What makes you look so happy, Albert?" asked his grandmother. "Seems to
me I never saw you look so sort of--well, glorified, as you might say.
What is the reason?"

The glorified one reddened and was confused. He stammered that he did
not know, he was not aware of any particular reason.

Mrs. Ellis beamed upon him. "I presume likely his bookkeepin' at the
office has been goin' pretty well lately," she suggested.

Captain Zelote's gray eyes twinkled. "Cal'late he's been makin' up more
poetry about girls," was his offering. "Another one of those pieces
about teeth like pearls and hair all curls, or somethin' like that. Say,
Al, why don't you poetry-makin' fellers try a new one once in a while?
Say, 'Her hair's like rope and her face has lost hope.' Eh? Why not, for
a change?"

The protests on the part of Olive and the housekeeper against the
captain's innovation in poetry-making had the effect of distracting
attention from Albert's "glorified" appearance. The young man himself
was thankful for the respite.

That night before he retired he took Madeline Fosdick's photograph from
the back of the drawer among the ties and collars and looked at it for
five minutes at least. She was a handsome girl, certainly. Not that
that made any difference to him. And she was an intelligent girl; she
understood his poetry and appreciated it. Yes, and she understood him,
too, almost as well as Helen. . . . Helen! He hastily returned the
Fosdick photograph to the drawer; but this time he did not put it quite
so near the back.

On the following Saturday he was early at the knoll, a brand-new
scribbling-pad in his pocket and in his mind divine gems which
were later, and with Miss Fosdick's assistance, to be strung into
a glittering necklace of lyric song and draped, with the stringer's
compliments, about the throat of a grateful muse. But no gems were
strung that day. Madeline did not put in an appearance, and by and by
it began to rain, and Albert walked home, damp, dejected, and disgusted.
When, a day or two later, he met Miss Fosdick at the post office and
asked why she had not come he learned that her mother had insisted upon
a motor trip to Wapatomac that afternoon.

"Besides," she said, "you surely mustn't expect me EVERY Saturday."

"No," he admitted grudgingly, "I suppose not. But you will come
sometimes, won't you? I have a perfec