ll you live in Paris?" asked Miss Herron.

"Oh, over in the Quarter, I hope. It'd be more fun there than in the
other house."

"The other house?"

"Ours, you know. Father likes to have his own place when he's over."

"Indeed?"

"We only lease it," Archie explained, ingenuously. "It's up near the
Arch."

"Indeed! That should be extremely pleasant."

"I hate the idea of going," the boy blurted out. He looked straight
ahead; a slow flush darkened his fair skin.

"Yes?"

"Unless," he murmured, suddenly inspired to madness, "unless----"

Miss Herron readjusted the dust cloth. The boy felt a quick irritation
at her apparent inattention; but the purpose, born of her apparent
readiness to hear and approve him, held. "I want Lucy to go, too, Miss
Herron," he announced, bluntly enough.

"Indeed!"

"Lucy!" he cried. "I do love her so! Please say that I can have her.
Please say----"

"Do I understand," she asked, and the boy could not comprehend why her
old voice shook so, "that you are making a formal proposal for the
hand of Miss Lucy Herron?"

"Yes," he cried, jubilantly. "Oh, say I may ask her."

"If you had intended so far to honor us," the old lady replied, icily,
"I should have thought that you would have approached the subject with
_some_ degree of formality."

"Miss Herron!"

"To speak of such matters in an--automobile is to treat them very
unbecomingly. It is not," she continued, and all her unbending
rigidity of demeanor was behind her words, "dignified."

"Being dignified," cried Archie, hotly, "hasn't anything to do with
being in love." Was it a smile that lighted up her craggy features,
like sunshine on granite. "You don't understand."

"Apparently not. I am quite unused to the ways of modern youth. The
world's moved very fast in recent years. In an--automobile--as it
were."

"But Lucy----"

"Well, Mr. Fraser?"

"I----"

"Let us not refer to her, I beg."

"Not ever again?" he asked, but with no hint of disappointment.

"I am surprised that you so much as dreamed of it under the present
circumstances," she replied, tartly.

Archie laughed shortly. "Please forget that I so far forgot myself,"
he begged. "It _was_ wrong, under the present circumstances." All the
boy's sunny malice shone from his clear eyes. "I ought to have
remembered my real duty and pleasure."

"And that," Miss Herron asked, for once caught unawares, as it
appeared, "is what?"

"Watch!" said Archie, briefly.