postman rang her heart gave a small leap and then stood quite still. When Annie slowly mounted the stairs she was already on her feet, but it was only a card announcing: "Mrs. Sayre, Wednesday, May fifteenth, luncheon at one-thirty."

However, at half past four the bell rang again, and a masculine voice informed Annie, a moment later, that it would put its overcoat here, because lately a dog had eaten a piece out of it and got most awful indigestion.

The time it took Annie to get up the stairs again gave her a moment so that she could breathe more naturally, and she went down very deliberately and so dreadfully poised that at first he thought she was not glad to see him.

"I came, you see," he said. "I intended to wait until to-morrow, but I had a little time. But if you're doing anything--"

"I was reading Gibbon's 'Rome,'" she informed him. "I think every one should know it. Don't you?"

"Good heavens, what for?" he inquired.

"I don't know." They looked at each other, and suddenly they laughed.

"I wanted to improve my mind," she explained. "I felt, last night, that you-that you know so many things, and that I was frightfully stupid."

"Do you mean to say," he asked, aghast, "that I--! Great Scott!"

Settled in the living-room, they got back rather quickly to their status of the night before, and he was moved to confession.

"I didn't really intend to wait until to-morrow," he said. "I got up with the full intention of coming here to-day, if I did it over the wreck of my practice. At eleven o'clock this morning I held up a consultation ten minutes to go to Yardsleys and buy a tie, for this express purpose. Perhaps you have noticed it already."

"I have indeed. It's a wonderful tie."

"Neat but not gaudy, eh?" He grinned at her, happily. "You know, you might steer me a bit about my ties. I have the taste of an African savage. I nearly bought a purple one, with red stripes. And Aunt Lucy thinks I should wear white lawn, like David!"

They talked, those small, highly significant nothings which are only the barrier behind which go on the eager questionings and unspoken answers of youth and 

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