plump, but once in a while Janet's glance was caught and held by a
strange, sharp beauty worthy of a cameo.

Opposite the Clarendon Mill on the corner of East Street was a provision
store with stands of fruit and vegetables encroaching on the pavement.
Janet's eye was attracted by a box of olives.

"Oh Eda," she cried, "do you remember, we saw them being picked--in the
movies? All those old trees on the side of a hill?"

"Why, that's so," said Eda. "You never would have thought anything'd grow
on those trees."

The young Italian who kept the store gave them a friendly grin.

"You lika the olives?" he asked, putting some of the shining black fruit
into their hands. Eda bit one dubiously with her long, white teeth, and
giggled.

"Don't they taste funny!" she exclaimed.

"Good--very good," he asserted gravely, and it was to Janet he turned, as
though recognizing a discrimination not to be found in her companion. She
nodded affirmatively. The strange taste of the fruit enhanced her sense
of adventure, she tried to imagine herself among the gatherers in the
grove; she glanced at the young man to perceive that he was tall and well
formed, with remarkably expressive eyes almost the colour of the olives
themselves. It surprised her that she liked him, though he was an Italian
and a foreigner: a certain debonnair dignity in him appealed to her--a
quality lacking in many of her own countrymen.