"old Bones," as the proprietor of the establishment was nicknamed,
sauntered through the store. In a gale of giggles the girls went
out, stealthily eating the crackers as they went. This adventure was
enough to put them in high spirits; Martie indeed was so easily
fired to excitement that the crossing of wits with Dr. Ben, the
personal word with Miss Fanny, and now Reddy's gallantry, had
brightened her colour and carried her elation to the point of
effervescence. Sparkling, chattering, flushed under her shabby
summer hat, Martie sauntered between her friends straight to her
golden hour.

Face to face they came with a tall, loosely built, well-dressed
young man, with a straw hat on one side of his head. Such a
phenomenon was almost unknown in the streets of Monroe, and keenly
conscious of his presence, and instantly curious as to his identity,
the girls could not pass him without a provocative glance.
"Stunning!" said each girl in her heart. "Who on earth--?"

Suddenly he blocked their way.

"Hello, Sally! Hello, Martie! Too proud to speak to old friends?"

"Why--it's Rodney Parker!" Martie said in her rich young voice.
"Hello, Rodney!"

All four shook hands and laughed joyously. To Rodney the
circumstance, at the opening of his dull return home, was welcome;
to the girls, nothing short of delight. He was so handsome, so
friendly, and in the four years he had been at Stanford University
and the summers he had spent in hunting expeditions or in eastern