o had been installed in her absence. She glanced at him
curiously, for one reason because every newcomer counted for so much in
the social life of the place, for another because he was so imposingly
large. "Even taller than Phil Tremont," she thought, and Phil was her
standard of all that a man should measure up to in every way.

Presently, seeing that the chicken-coop would occupy their attention
indefinitely unless she made some sign, she tapped on the floor with her
heel. It was the new clerk who turned, and taking his hands out of his
pockets, strode in to wait on her. She noticed that he had to stoop as
he came through the doorway. Then she almost forgot what it was she had
come to buy, in her surprise. For it was Pink Upham who rushed up to
greet her, still red-faced and awkward and facetious, but such a
different Pink that she could understand why the Captain had spoken of
him as Pinckney, instead of by his undignified nickname. The year at
college had done him good.

While he measured off the crash she was taking his measure with quick,
critical glances. It was not his pale, straw-colored hair she objected
to, made to look even paler by the contrast of his florid complexion and
red four-in-hand with its turquoise scarf-pin. It was the way he combed
his hair that she criticized, and the gaudy tie and the combination of
colors. But his cordial greeting softened her critical glances somewhat.
He was genuinely glad to see her, and it was flattering to be welcomed
so heartily.

That night at the supper table she recounted her adventures. "I met Pink
Upham at the store to-day, Jack. How old do you suppose he is?"

"Oh, about twenty-one. Why?"

"Well, I scarcely knew him before we went away, and he called me by my
first name as pat as you may please, and I didn't like it. And when he
rolled up the towelling he crooked his little finger in such an
affected, genteel, Miss Prim sort of way that it made his big fat hands
look ridiculous. I don't know exactly what it was about him that
irritated me so, but I couldn't bear him. And yet it seemed that he was
so near being nice, that he could be awfully likable if he wasn't so
self-conscious and queer."

"He's all right," answered Jack. "Pink is a good-hearted fellow, with
the best intentions in the world, but he's green. You see, he hasn't any
sisters to call him down and make fun of his mannerisms and set him
straight on his color schemes and such things. Now, a girl i