like Cherry vale, Mr. Henley?"

"Looks good to me," he responded.

Then silence again, save for Jim's shoes. Missy racked her brains.
What do you say to boys who don't know the same people and affairs
you do? Back there at the party things had gone easily, but they
were playing cards or dancing or eating; there had been no need for
tete-a-tete conversation. How do you talk to people you don't know?

She liked Jim, but the need to make talk was spoiling everything.
She moved along beside his creaking shoes as in a nightmare, and, as
she felt every atom of her freezing to stupidity, she desperately
forced her voice: "What a beautiful night it is!"

"Yes, it's great."

Missy sent him a sidelong glance. He didn't look exactly happy
either. Did he feel awkward too?

Creak! creak! creak! said the shoes.

"Listen to those shoes--never heard 'em squeak like that before," he
muttered apologetically.

Missy, striving for a proper answer and finding none, kept on moving
through that feeling of nightmare. What was the matter with her
tongue, her brain? Was it because she didn't know Jim well enough to
talk to him? Surely not, for she had met strange boys before and not
felt like this. Was it because it was night? Did you always feel