childlike that Howard paused and said: "What is it--a fairy story?"

"No, it's a love story," she replied, just glancing at him with a faint
smile and showing that she did not wish to be interrupted. The same night
as he was going to bed he heard the angry voices of the two girls. A week
later, toward the end of July, he found Alice sitting on the front stoop,
when he came from dinner. She was obviously in the depths of the "blues."
Her eyes, the droop of the corners of her mouth, even the colour of her
skin indicated anxiety and depression. She looked so forlorn that he said
gently: "Wouldn't you like to walk in the Square?"

She rose at once. "Yes, I guess so." They crossed to the green. She was
wearing the pale-blue gown and it fitted her well. Neither in the gown nor
in the big hat with its coquettish flowers nodding over the brim was there
much of fashion. But there was a certain distinction in her walk and her
manner of wearing her clothes; and to a pretty face and a graceful form was
added the charm of youth, magnetic youth.

"Do you want to walk?" she asked, lassitude in her voice.

"No, let us sit," he said, and they went to a bench near the arch. It was
twilight. The children were still romping and shouting. Many fat elderly
women--mothers and grandmothers--were solemnly marching about, talking in
fat, elderly voices.

"You have the blues?" asked Howard, thinking it might make her feel better
to talk of her troubles. "If I were your doctor, I should prescribe a
series of good cries."

"I don't cry," said the girl. "Sometimes I wish I could. Nellie cries and