ust
keep from crying. She did not wish him to think her a little fool as
well as other things.

She was forced to confess that after the first five minutes Don did
his best to relieve the tension. He talked to Mrs. Halliday about one
thing and another, and kept on talking. And, though it was quite
evident to her that he had no appetite, he managed to consume three of
the hot biscuit. After supper, when she rose to help her aunt in the
kitchen, he wished also to help. But Mrs. Halliday would have neither
of them. That made it bad for her again, for it left her with no
alternative but to sit again upon the front porch with him. So there
they were again, right back where they started.

"What did you run into the house for?" he demanded.

"Please let's not talk any more, of that," she pleaded.

"But it's the nub of the whole matter," he insisted.

"I went in because I did not want to talk any more."

"Very well. Then you needn't talk. But you can listen, can't you?"

"That's the same thing."

"It's exactly the opposite thing. You can listen, and just nod or
shake your head. Then you won't have to speak a word. Will you do
that?"

It was an absurd proposition, but she was forced either to accept it
or to run away again. Somehow, it did not appear especially dignified
to keep on running away, when in the end she must needs come back
again. So she nodded.

"Let's go back to the beginning," he suggested. "That's somewhere
toward the middle of my senior year. I'd known Frances before that,
but about that time she came on to Boston, and we went to a whole lot
of dances and things together."

He paused a moment.

"I wish I'd brought a picture of her with me," he resumed thoughtfully,
"because she's really a peach."

Miss Winthrop looked up quickly. He was apparently serious.

"She's tall and dark and slender," he went on, "and when she's all
togged up she certainly looks like a queen. She had a lot of friends
in town, and we kept going about four nights a week. Then came the
ball games, and then Class Day. You ever been to Class Day?"

Miss Winthrop shook her head with a quick little jerk.

"It's all music and Japanese lanterns, and if you're sure of your
degree it's a sort of fairyland where nothing is quite real. You just
feel at the time that it's always going to be like that. It was then I
asked her to marry me."

Miss Winthrop was sitting with her chin in her hands, looking intently
at the brick path le