settled. He resumed his waiting, gave it up, departed.

He went out into the idle afternoon, his consciousness in some odd disturbance. She had not come. Mrs. Granger would start the library ball rolling. Poor, pretty little thing! (Did he mean Mrs. Granger, would one hazard?)

"Ma," said Arpeggio that evening, as he buttered his waffles, "Mrs. Granger is going to help out on the liberary."

She christened her second grandchild and handed the brown-sugar syrup.

"You never saw anybody like to see things grow the way she says she does," Arpeggio pursued after a time.

Mrs. Shadd stirred her hot water and listened.

"She's coming over to see our strawberry-bed."

"Õh!" said Mrs. Shadd. "When?" Through her thought ran like lightning the best dishes, the embroidered centerpiece, the China tea.

"Thursday," said Arpeggio, dreamily. "This Thursday. Thursday," he added, "is her day out. I guess I could stand another four waffles, ma.'

وو

On Thursday she came to the Shadds' alone, as a matter of course. It occurred neither to her nor to Arpeggio that he should fetch her. In fact, she arrived before he did, and sat with Mrs. Shadd in the arbor. They got on famously. Mrs. Shadd, who was not quite clear who her guest was, regretted having got out her poplin.

I needn't have been nervous," she reflected. "She's just folks. No gloves, even."

Arpeggio came home. There is nothing sweeter, nothing more fundamental than the delight with which a man shows the garden of his hand. In nothing else, save when a man or a woman exhibits a baby, is there such obvious coordination between the human being and great nature. Neither could have proceeded without the other. The race could not persist without this co-operation. There is, in a man's display of his garden, some reflection of that terrific. minute of man's second sublime triumph, when at last he controlled his food. No more skulking in marsh or jungle or thicket. He had it! He could

make it grow. Something of that second sublime triumph is in the face of every man who says, "Come and see my garden." The first sublime triumph, when he reared himself erect, has entirely faded, save momentarily in a smile, while he watches his baby do it over again.

"Come and see my garden," said Arpeggio. (Poor little thing! He would try to give her a little pleasure, anyhow.) And Mrs. Shadd, discreetly lingering to put on the kettle, watched the two through the pantry window. She noted Arpeggio's smile, his vivacity, his twist of shoulder, his bending of the head. "Is it that?" she thought.

Out in the garden there was May, there were plum-blossoms, there was slanting four-o'clock sun. Little green shoots and sprouts and buds signaled their victories. The doves cooed as if they would never have everything said.

"Here'll be " said Arpeggio, “and here'll be—and here-" It doesn't matter what. It never does matter what. Five minutes afterward the visitor would not be able to recite the position of a single herb. But the gardener still knows.

"Yes. Oh yes. Yes, I see," said Mamie, as a visitor should say.

Not much of a conversation, but not the only uses of a conversation are to

converse.

"Nice, ain't it?" Arpeggio appealed, when they had been the slow rounds.

Oh, it was. There was no doubt about that. Mamie leaned against a plumtree, looked up into the branches, saw gold sun threading that treasure of white against the blinding blue.

"It's spring, all right," she observed,. from a full heart.

"You bet," said Arpeggio, and filled his eyes with looking.

This is the immemorial vernal lyric, and it does not much matter how it gets itself said.

"Oh, my!" said Mamie, "I just do love to make things grow."

"That's me," said Arpeggio.

Mrs. Shadd came down the path, her hands under her apron. "When you two are ready for tea-any time," she announced, elliptically.

Tea. Mamie bent her little finger in

all the elegance she knew, lifting it high from biscuit, glass, or teacup handle. She was tense, bit her lip, said "I should say" to everything, laughed a great deal, looked at Arpeggio not at all. Which sounds like a list of symptoms. As for Arpeggio, that shoulder of his continued its eloquent gesturing.

"My! this has just been elegant," said Mamie at parting.

"How about going to see that farm?" Arpeggio wanted to know.

"I have every third Sunday off," Mamie promptly imparted, "and next Sunday's the one.'

"Suppose I look up a farm for then?" Arpeggio offered.

"You're awful good to take me," quoth Mamie. "I've been awful homesick. It would be so nice-" Her look was a completion.

gone.

Good to take her. Arpeggio paused at that, and turned it, Mamie having When had he said that he was to take her? He had meant to send her, chivalrously. (Little homesick thing!) So she expected to be taken. Oh, very well. After all, why not?

On Saturday, at nine in the morning, he walked into the office, to find his two brother commissioners, like nature, in a state of flux.

"Listen at this," Stack accosted him, an arm waving. "A bloomin' lot o' women trapsin' the streets of Banning, gettin' everybody all het up over a new town liberary. They're at it."

"So?" said Arpeggio, looking over the seed catalogues which constituted his mail. "A new one? What they goin' to do with the old liberary, Stack?"

"Don't you go bein' fi-cetious," said Mr. Mayhew, in warning. "Us commissioners and this hull town 'd be all right if it wasn't for this darned uplift."

Dodd Purcell carressed his nose with all five fingers. "It'll get things awful upset to hev 'em plump down on us with a proposition of that kind now, with the treasury what it is. Turn it down, and the best people go ag'in' you. Make an appropriation, and the taxpayers raise Ebenezer."

"Gettin' your hymns and your swearin' mixed some, ain't you? Gosh! Look at them strawberries," said Arpeggio, brandishing a cover of blood-red fruit.

"Well," said Mr. Mayhew, "we want to leave it be known that we won't countenance no such goin'-ons, no matter how much they subscribe and petition and go buttin' in."

"Sure we do," agreed Mr. Purcell. "Squench the thing in the bud."

They looked expectantly at Arpeggio.

Got to get me about fifty new strawberry plants," said Arpeggio, dreamily. "Any of you fellows know anything about these here nursery folks?""

It is noticeable that when in any community a proposal is inaugurated or championed by the best-looking automobile about, that proposal finds followers. Here is no cause for cynicism. How better could that automobile be occupied? In Banning there was the Granger automobile, and forthwith Merrills and Listers and Dents and Bards and Cordys fell in line, agreed to canvass the town, held little living-room meetings, buttonholed husbands, sent committees to interview business housesjust generally revolted against having no town library in Banning. Since the town was, there had been no town library there. These same families had gone about bookless. Now, the moment having struck, the library began to emerge from somewhere. Echoes of its emergence reached Arpeggio, echoes of the activities of Mrs. Granger. Arpeggio was bewildered. Here was something which he had used as a tool. His own purpose remained unaccomplished, and lo, here was the tool working on its own hook. For not once in those days did eye of his fall again on Miss Edith Granger.

And how wildly had his heart beat every time he passed her home. On the Sunday, for example, when he did his chivalrous part and took out, for a breath of her native country air, Miss Mamie Short. It was on that day that he discovered her name to be Short. He hired the little red cart and the fat black mare with which (though of this he was innocent) young Banning went forth to pay its visits to the girls on the hill farms about. At ten in the morning he

drove to the door of the Grangers' home and called for Mamie. On the back seat, in her poplin, sat Mrs. Shadd. "The ride 'll do ma good," Arpeggio had thought. He went boldly to the front door, no other course occurring to him. He hoped ardently that Miss Edith

"DO YOU THINK SO, MR. SHADD?"

Granger would chance to open the door. He should have liked her to know that he was doing this pleasant turn to this homesick little maid of hers. And then -he should so like to see this elusive idol. Not once-never once since her brief and glorious dawning before Becker

& Broom's-had his eyes rejoiced in her. He had worshiped dumbly, distantly, wistfully ever. Even now it was not she who appeared at his ring. It was Mamie herself Mamie, in a party hat with a gay blue feather. But to Arpeggio she looked exquisitely bedight.

"Well, Mamie!" said he, patronizingly. Some way, with his vehicle and his mother at the gate, he felt himself to be every inch the commissioner, bestowing bounties.

"Yes, sir," said Mamie, glowing. It was almost impossible to think of her as the haughty young person who, not a fortnight ago, had rebuked the sleeping Arpeggio.

They were off, down miles of May. The apple orchards were at the noon of their exquisite life. The air was an ecstasy of fragrance. That day the oriole had come, and from heights and nearnesses sounded that full-throated call, flashed that drop and dart of orange, that cry and gesture and vigor of abundant life. Life! That was it. Arpeggio flapped the reins and clucked. Mamie ah'd in very rapture. Mrs. Shadd broke into low humming. May!

Where were they going? Arpeggio knew a farm. He was not inordinately clear how to get there, and this made vagrant wanderings in many a secret road. Their drive was charmingly prolonged. It was past noon when they turned into the spacious yard, set round like a room with furniture of wagons and flowerbeds and troughs and farm machinery and bridal-apple trees and sleepy cats.

"Oh, murder!" said Mamie, rapturously.

She sat holding her elbows, rocking a bit, gazing about in utter happiness.

"Like it?" asked Arpeggio, complacently, as if he had turned it out with a wave of his hand. He was somewhat unnerved to see again that welling and brimming of her deep eyes. "Nice little thing," he said to himself, and held up his hand to help her down. She slipped from the seat trustingly and absently, like a child, gave him her full

weight, stood where he set her, like a kitten.

"Oh, murder me!" she said, beneath her breath.

They took their basket up in the orchard. Arpeggio had his mother's arm; Mamie ran ahead, genuinely forgetful of all. Under a low blossoming tree they spread what they had brought. And there is no more need to enumerate what they had brought than to count the blossoms on the tree.

When she had eaten, Mamie climbed that tree like a squirrel, and sat in the branches; ran far down through the lanes of trees as if she would clasp them all; buried her face in a dozen friendly boughs. She was like no other. Arpeggio watched her, marveling. As he knew the genus "young lady," she appeared in parlors in silk waists, with neat, freshly combed hair, and talked about actual happenings. Or she danced, went walking, played croquet. Once all these had been for him transcended by a ravishing creature, of elegance of manner, who had descended from a car and outstretched to him a white glove. But this child, with her soul shining through her face, tumbling and sporting and quivering and kindling-who had ever seen anything like this?

Arpeggio was profoundly stirred. He walked about among the trees, examined the bark, picked off a web or two, chewed grass, and finally overtook Mamie, where she ran.

"You like the country, don't you?" he observed.

"I just do. I could die in the coun

"Oh, don't do that."

"I hope I don't."

"My, but you must miss the country.'

Don't I, though? Ain't this grand?" Arpeggio looked down in her pinkand-white face, against the pink-andwhite branches.

"How'd you like to live in the country?" he heard himself say.

She colored, swiftly, burningly, beautifully, and met his eyes full. And she was eloquently silent.

"I kind of would," he said, weakly, and leaped in the air to catch at a bough, tantalizingly high. "Wonder where

VOL. CXXXVI.-No. 811.-10

mother is?" questioned Arpeggio, and trotted away through the trees to find out. He felt rather out of breath and uncertain. "I must pay attention," he admonished himself.

He wandered off to a lonely spot and set himself deliberately to dream of. Edith Granger. She was like a queenthat was it. She was like a queen. How he would love to see her in her home. Was he never to see her in her home? He imagined her coming down these bright aisles of bloom, in her perfect broadcloth, her imperious little hat, her white, white gloves. . . . Something, though, was the matter with this. He suspended his imaginings. In those same bright aisles he saw some one framed, some one racing, hatless, laughing, waving a buxom arm at him as she ran over the fresh grass, shaking back her hair. It was not in this way that Edith Granger would visit an orchard in spring. But it was a very good way!

His mother came wandering by and stood beside him. "Heard anything about the liberary lately?" she wanted to know, a bit wistfully.

"No," said Arpeggio. "Mother, I wish 't you'd get yourself a blue calico like Mamie's. What? Ain't it calico? Well, anyhow, I'd kind of like to see it around the house."

They drove home in the long May twilight, and as they reached the Grangers' gate Mamie leaned and put both her warm, firm hands on Arpeggio's, over the lines.

"You done the grandest thing ever," she said—hands and lips and eyes, and was out before he could alight.

Arpeggio lifted his hat with the careful deliberation which this ceremony demanded, turned to nod his good-night, looked after Mamie, and swept with his glance that magic house. No one on the veranda, no one at a window. . . . Edith Granger, Edith Granger, where did she keep herself? He drove away and thought about those rooms wherein she moved. He thought about the kitchen.

"She'll have to get supper now," he thought. "I wonder what sort of a meal she gets up?"

But what had this to do with Edith Granger?

Two days later a telephone message came to Mr. Dodd Purcell, senior member of the Banning commission. Might Mrs. Granger and a committee of women wait upon the commissioners? Yes, they meant now. If they were in session. They were in session. The rattled Mr. Purcell had granted an audience and had hung up the receiver before he knew what had happened to him.

"For the love of mud!" said Stack Mayhew, "why didn't you say we was all full up? Or goin' out in the country? Or none of us wasn't here?”

"Yes, why didn't I? Why didn't I?" repeated Mr. Purcell, moodily. "Why didn't you answer it your smart-Alec self? My brains ain't oozin' down my forehead on tap, same as some."

"You bet they ain't," said Stack. "They're spongin' out the inside o' your head. That's what they're for. Ďum it! I wish 't I was dead."

"Same here," said Dodd, energetically, enigmatically.

They all produced pocket combs. They all wiped their shoes with their handkerchiefs. They each carried out a cuspidor and hid it in the back entry. And the ladies were upon them.

Mrs.

Arpeggio, facing the door as they entered, felt a kind of faintness. Granger was leading. In the background was a dull assortment of Bards and Cordys. Blooming between these and her mother came Edith Granger.

She was in some exquisitely colored cotton which Arpeggio would have called calico. A wide hat shaded her face, half hid her treasure of bright hair. She was white-gloved, and at once, behind her mother, she advanced to the commissioners and put out her hand. So did the other women. And each commissioner, rubbing his hand first on his coat, shook hands.

Stack Mayhew was distinctly the beau of the occasion. He it was who remembered to bring forward chairs while Dodd stood idle, and Arpeggio stared adoringly at Edith Granger.

Brisk, capable, poised, Mrs. Granger introduced the matter. As they were aware, Banning was sadly, shamefully in need of a library. The point, since she was speaking to gentlemen of education, needed no exposition. They would as

sume that the matter in hand might be treated directly, and this Mrs. Granger would ask should be done by her daughter, whose project originally the library had been.

Arpeggio turned full his gaze upon his adorata. Oh, beautiful! His soul summoned him. He earnestly hoped that the moment would last forever. She laid on the table a parasol of lace, a bag of golden meshes, a mere flake of cambric, a flower that she carried.

"Gentlemen [she was speaking], what we have to propose we hope will meet with your favor. We can assure you it has met with the favor of those whose co-operation we have secured. . .

Here Arpeggio lost the thread. He lost it in the flood of the sense of another world in which this lady moved. It was not alone the exquisite daintiness, the cut and fall of fabric (so different from those of Mrs. Shadd). It was not alone the bright assurance of her. Nor yet was it this alien and disconcerting speech of her, so varied, in its lightest value of intonation, from that which Arpeggio knew. Again, it was not the soft hand with its single glittering jewel, exposed when she drew off a glove to bring forth a paper which she spread before them; nor was it even the little silver glass which she lifted to her eyes. What was it? All these it may have been. In any case, it seemed to Arpeggio that he looked at her up immeasurable galleries of space. She was other-in another world. He worshiped helplessly at the feet of that bright perfection. And as he worshiped, farther and farther did the lady seem to withdraw-or was it that he fell through the deep distance, and might-he saw it now-never dare to dream of mounting to her side?

"Don't you think so, Mr. Shadd?" at length he heard her say.

He leaned forward, staring at her. "What was that?" he said, stupidly.

Stack, the beau, glared at him. “Šure he thinks so," said Stack, and both he and Arpeggio colored when the ladies laughed. A check lay on the table before them. It was a check for a thousand dollars. This was the amount which the women had collected and themselves given, and it was to be expended by the