ack.

It was with a guilty feeling that she habitually walked past the rows of
history and travel. Ellen would have stopped here, she knew, and have
carried home volumes telling of Europe and China and India and other
lands unknown to Hertha even by name. Tom in her place would have asked
for Livingstone's _Travels in Africa_, a book he had always wanted to
own. She hoped they would surely have it in the school where he was
reading or studying that night. Well, Ellen was industrious, and Tom
liked to stop and think; but she, Hertha, never had cared for heavy
reading--except poetry, and poetry belonged under the pines or by the
river, not in noisy New York. So excusing herself, she reached the
jaunty, attractively bound fiction and joined the large group of
borrowers who were intent on securing a thrilling story for the morrow.

"Excuse me, but do you know anything about these books?"

She turned to see a young man at her elbow. He was tall, not in the
least good-looking, with a long, thin face, a small mouth and a sharp
nose. His eyes, however, were attractive--deep blue with long lashes
like a child's. He was dressed in cheap, conspicuously patterned
clothes, and his gay necktie bore a large scarfpin. She hesitated to
answer, and yet there was a tone of entreaty in his voice that gave her
confidence. She felt sure that he was from the country and was
floundering about amid this multitude of volumes as she had floundered a
few weeks ago. He should, of course, consult the official-looking
librarian seated at her desk whose business it was to instruct
newcomers, but the newcomer is the one who instinctively avoids the
official class. Glancing down she answered shyly, "Very little."

They were between two stacks, and looking along the line of volumes,
Hertha saw a familiar title and took down _The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes_.

"Have you read this?" she asked.

"No, ma'am," was the answer.

She smiled at the "ma'am" for it reminded her of home. "I feel like
you'll enjoy it," she ventured.

"There," the young man cried, so loudly that a number of borrowers
turned to look at them both. "I knew the minute I set eyes on you that
you were from the South!"

Hertha was very much annoyed. This forward youth was making her
conspicuous. Leaving him she went quickly to the reading-room, and
seating herself at a table took up a magazine. In a few minutes,
however, she saw him at her side.

"I didn't mean to make such a