renew our old acquaintance, eh?"

"Thank you, sir," said the girl.

"'Sir?' Rot! You aren't going to 'sir' me, Annette, after all the fun
and the fights we had in the old days. Not much. We're going to be good
chums again, eh? What do you say?"

"I don't know," said Annette, flashing a swift glance into Captain
Jack's admiring eyes. "It depends on--"

"On me?"

"I didn't say so." Her head went up a bit.

"On you?"

"I didn't say so."

"Well, let it go. But we will be pals again, Annette, I vow. Good-bye."
Captain Jack lifted his hat and moved away.

As he reached his car he ran up against young Rupert Stillwell.

"Deucedly pretty Annette has grown, eh?" said Stillwell.

"Annette's all right," said Jack, rather brusquely, entering his car.

"Working in your box factory, I understand, eh?"

"Don't really know," said Jack carelessly. "Probably."

The crowd had meantime faded away with Captain Jack's going.

"Did na know the Captain was a friend of yours, Annette," said Mack,
falling into step beside her.

"No--yes--I don't know. We went to Public School together before the
war. I was a kid then." Her manner was abstracted and her eyes were
far away. Mack walked gloomily by her on one side, little Steve on the
other.

"Huh! He's no your sort, A doot," he said sullenly.

"What do you say?" cried Annette, returning from her abstraction. "What
do you mean, 'my sort'?" Her head went high and her eyes flashed.

"He would na look at ye, for ony guid."

"He did look at me though," replied Annette, tossing her head.

"No for ony guid!" repeated Mack, stubbornly.

Annette stopped in her tracks, a burning red on her cheeks and a
dangerous light in her black eyes.

"Mr. McNish, that's your road," she said, pointing over his shoulder.

"A'll tak it tae," said McNish, wheeling on his heel, "an' ye can hae
your Captain for me."

With never a look at him Annette took her way home.

"Good-bye, Steve," she said, stooping and kissing the boy. "This is your
corner."

"Annette," he said, with a quick, shy look up into her face, "I like
Captain Jack, don't you?"

"No," she said hurriedly. "I mean yes, of course."

"And I like you too," said the boy, with an adoring look in his deep
eyes, "better'n anyone in the world."

"Do you, Steve? I'm glad." Again she stooped swiftly and kissed him.
"Now run home."

She hurried home, passed into her room without a word to anyone. Slowly
she removed her hat, then tu