closed library door with anxious eyes. Would it never open? 

It was quite late that evening before she saw Chris again, and then he came into the drawing-room, where she was trying to read and trying not to listen for his step, and, crossing to where she sat, stood looking down at her. 

It was getting dark—the June evening was drawing to a close—and she could not see his face very distinctly, though she felt in some curious way that there was a different note in his voice when he spoke to her. 

"How old are you, Marie?" 

She looked up amazed. Surely he ought to know her age when they had grown up together? But she answered at once: "I was eighteen last May." 

"And a kid for your age, too," he said abruptly. 

 9 She closed her book, a faint sense of hurt dignity in her heart. 

9

"I knew a girl who was married at eighteen," she said. 

Christopher laughed. "I can't imagine you married, all the same." he said. 

"Why not? I don't see why not," she objected, offendedly. 

He stood for a moment looking down at her. She could feel his eyes upon her. Then he said, irrelevantly, it seemed: "After all, we've known each other most of our lives, haven't we?" 

"Yes." She was mystified. She could not understand him. 

"And got on well—eh?" he pursued. 

She smiled ever so faintly. "Oh, yes," she said, with heartfelt fervor. 

Chris laughed. "Well—I'll take you for a ride in the car to- morrow, if you like," he said, casually. 

Marie could not have explained why, but she felt sure that this was not what he had originally intended to say to her, but she answered at once: "Yes, I should love it!" 

It was the first ride of many, the first of many blissful days that followed, for Christopher no longer went out and about with his friends. He stayed at home with Marie and Miss Chester. 

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