just so many petticoats, timid of the night streets and requiring escort
home. If you had suggested to him that some of his sisters' popularity
was due to his own presence, or if you had hinted that the more
kittenish of these visitors were probably making eyes at him, he would
have stared in amazement and unbelief.

This Sunday night it turned out to be one of Carrie's friends.

"Emily," said Carrie, "this is my brother, Jo."

Jo had learned what to expect in Carrie's friends. Drab-looking women in
the late thirties, whose facial lines all slanted downward.

"Happy to meet you," said Jo, and looked down at a different sort
altogether. A most surprisingly different sort, for one of Carrie's
friends. This Emily person was very small, and fluffy, and blue-eyed,
and sort of--well, crinkly looking. You know. The corners of her mouth
when she smiled, and her eyes when she looked up at you, and her hair,
which was brown, but had the miraculous effect, somehow, of being
golden.

Jo shook hands with her. Her hand was incredibly small, and soft, so
that you were afraid of crushing it, until you discovered she had a firm
little grip all her own. It surprised and amused you, that grip, as does
a baby's unexpected clutch on your patronising forefinger. As Jo felt it
in his own big clasp, the strangest thing happened to him. Something
inside Jo Hertz stopped working for a moment, then lurched sickeningly,
then thumped like mad. It was his heart. He stood staring down at her,
and she up at him, until the others laughed. Then their hands fell
apart, lingeringly.