uld hate her and nothing in
this world make me false for one second to my kiddo boy. I do not know
just when home again as the folks think I better stay up there for a
visit at Aunt Jess and Uncle Purvs home in Chicago after the trip is
over. But I will think of you all the time and you must think of me
every minute and believe your own dearie she will never no not for one
second be false. So tell Sade and Alb good-by for me and do not be
false to me any more than I would be to you and it will not be long till
nothing more will interrupt our sweet friendship.

As a measure of domestic prudence, Ramsey tore the note into irreparable
fragments, but he did this slowly, and without experiencing any of the
revulsion created by Milla's former missive.

He was melancholy, aggrieved that she should treat him so.

Chapter X

He never saw her again. She sent him a "picture postal" from Oconomowoc,
Wisconsin, which his father disengaged from the family mail, one morning
at breakfast, and considerately handed to him without audible comment.
Upon it was written, _"Oh, you Ramsey!"_ This was the last of Milla.

Just before school opened, in the autumn, Sadie Clews made some
revelations. "Milla did like you," said Sadie. "After that time you
jumped in the creek to save her she liked you better than any boy in
town, and I guess if it wasn't for her cousin Milt up in Chicago she
would of liked you the best anywhere. I guess she did, anyway, because
she hadn't seen him for about a year then.

"Well, that afternoon she went away I was over there and took in
everything that was goin' on, only she made me promise on my word of
honour I wouldn't even tell Albert. They didn't get any wire from her
uncle about the touring car; it was her cousin Milt that jumped on the
train and came down and fixed it all up for Milla to go on the trip, and
everything. You see, Ramsey, she was turned back a couple of times in
school before she came in our class and I don't exactly know how old
she is and she don't _look_ old yet, but I'm pretty sure she's at least
eighteen, and she might be over. Her mother kept tellin' her all the
time you were just a kid, and didn't have anything to support her on,
and lots of things like that. I didn't think such a great deal of this
Milt's looks, myself, but he's anyway twenty-one years old, and got a
good position, and all their family seem to think he's just fine! It
wasn't his father that took in the tourin