his, and burst out:

"I'll _tell_ you why I didn't meet you to-night, Mark Rosenthal, and if
you don't like it, you know what you can do! Last week you asked me
would I go to Morosco's with you, and I said yes, and then when it came
right down to it--your mother wasn't going, and Sophy and Hannah weren't
going, and Otto wasn't going--and I tell you right now that Mama don't
like me to go to the theatre--"

"Well, well, well!" Mark interrupted soothingly, half laughing, half
aghast at this burst of rebuke from the usually gentle Julia. "Don't be
so cross about it! So--" He put her arm in his again. "I like to have
you to myself, Julia," he said, his boyish, handsome face suddenly
flushing, his voice very low. "Do you know why?"

"No," said Julia after a pause, the word strangling her.

"You don't, eh?" Mark said, with a smiling side glance.

"Nope," said Julia, dimpling as she returned the look, and shutting her
pretty lips firmly over the little word.

"Do you know you are ador-r-rable?" Mark said, in a sort of eager rush.
"Will you go to Maskey's with me, instead of joining the others at
Haas's?" he asked, more quietly.

"Well," Julia said. She was her own mistress. Her mother had gone home
during the play with Mrs. Toomey, who complained of a headache. So,
grinning like conspirators, they stayed on the south side of the street
until it joined Market, and then went by the fountain and the big