al
discouraged; but the two families made pleasing deductions! Mary
Houghton intimated as much to Maurice.

"What!" he said. "Are they engaged?"

"Well, no; not _yet_."

There was a little pause; then Maurice (this was one of the moments when
he forgot Jacky's future!) said, with great heartiness, "Old John's in
luck!" He and Mrs. Houghton were sitting on the porch in that somnolent
hour after dinner, before she went upstairs to take a nap, and Maurice
should go over to the Bennetts' for singles with Johnny; Eleanor was
resting. Out on the lawn in the breezy sun and shadow under the tulip
tree, Edith, fresh from a shampoo, was reading. Now and then she tossed
her head like a colt, to make her fluffy hair blow about in a glittering
brown nimbus.

Maurice got up and sauntered over to her. "Coming to see me wallop
Johnny?"

"Maybe; if my horrid old hair ever dries."

Maurice looked at the "horrid old hair," and wished he could put out his
hand and touch it. He was faintly surprised at himself that he didn't do
it! "How mad I used to make her when I pulled her hair!" Now, he
couldn't even put a finger on it. He remembered the night of Lily's
distracted telegram, when he had taken Edith to Fern Hill, and she had
"bet on him," and had been again, just for an instant, so entirely the
"little girl" of their old frank past, that she had _kissed him_! "So,
why can't I touch her hair, now?" he pondered; "we are just like brother
and sister." But he knew he couldn't. Aloud, he said, "Don't be lazy,
Skeezics," and lounged off toward Doctor Bennett's. His face was heavy.

At the doctor's, John, sitting on a gate post, waiting for him, yelled,
derisively: "You're late! 'Fraid of getting walloped? Where's Buster?"

"She's forgotten all about you. Get busy!" Maurice commanded.

They played, neither of them with much zest, and both of them with
glances toward the road. The walloping was fairly divided; but it was
Maurice who gave out first, and said he had to go home. ("Eleanor'll be
hunting for me, the first thing I know," he thought.)

"Tell Edith I'll come over to-night," Johnny called after him.

"I'm not carrying _billets-doux_," Maurice retorted. "I suppose," he
thought, listlessly, "it will be a short engagement." He went home by
the path through the woods, and halfway back Edith met him--the shining
hair dried, but inclined to tumble over her ears, so that her hat
slipped about on her head. She said:

"Johnny lick