uch for him, and everything, he just didn't know _what_ to
do, and proba'ly it would be tactful if he wouldn't come to the house
till grandpa got over being embarrassed and everything. She said not to
come till she let him know."

"Did you notice Noble when he read it?" asked Aunt Carrie.

"Yessir! And would you believe it; he just looked _too_ happy!" Florence
made answer, not wholly comprehending with what truth.

"I'll bet," said Uncle Joseph;--"I'll bet a thousand dollars that if
Julia told Noble Dill he was six feet tall, Noble would go and order his
next suit of clothes to fit a six-foot man."

And his wife complemented this with a generalization, simple, yet of a
significance too little recognized. "They don't see a thing!" she said.
"The young men that buzz around a girl's house don't see a _thing_ of
what goes on there! Inside, I mean."

Yet at that very moment a young man was seeing something inside a girl's
house a little way down that same street. That same street was Julia's
Street and the house was Julia's. Inside the house, in the library, sat
Mr. Atwater, trying to read a work by Thomas Carlyle, while a rhythmic
murmur came annoyingly from the veranda. The young man, watching him
attentively, saw him lift his head and sniff the air with suspicion, but
the watcher took this pantomime to be an expression of distaste for
certain versifyings, and sharing that distaste, approved. Mr. Atwater
sniffed again, threw down his book and strode out to the veranda. There
sat dark-haired Julia in a silver dress, and near by, Newland Sanders
read a long young poem from the manuscript.

"Who is smoking out here?" Mr. Atwater inquired in a dead voice.

"Nobody, sir," said Newland with eagerness. "_I_ don't smoke. I have
never touched tobacco in any form in my life."

Mr. Atwater sniffed once more, found purity; and returned to the
library. But here the air seemed faintly impregnated with Orduma
cigarettes. "Curious!" he said as he composed himself once more to
read--and presently the odour seemed to wear away and vanish. Mr.
Atwater was relieved; the last thing he could have wished was to be
haunted by Noble Dill.

Yet for that while he was. Too honourable to follow such an example as
Florence's, Noble, of course, would not spy or eavesdrop near the
veranda where Julia sat, but he thought there could be no harm in
watching Mr. Atwater read. Looking at Mr. Atwater was at least the next
thing to looking at Julia.