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 tion had not subsided but increased. "I suppose we couldn't go on a little way farther? Prob'ly you want to go in?"

"Want to?" she echoed, and, as she wished to look over the two dresses before making a choice between them, she decided against any prolongation of their walk. "I don't know why you should put it that way, Nelson," she said. "One doesn't always do what one wants to."

"But it isn't near dinnertime yet. If you do want to, I don't see why"

"Men never see why," she said gently. "Because they can do what they like with their own time, they always think a girl can."

He sighed. Her tone implied important duties that could not honourably be evaded, no matter what her desires might be; and he understood that her strong inclination was to extend their walk. "Well," he said, "I wish you could; but if you can't" He leaned against one of the pillars of rough stone that served as gate-posts. "Anyhow, I'm glad we've had this talk. There's not many girls I'd care to talk to the way I do to you, Claire, because they wouldn't understand. In the first place, what I mean, I wouldn't talk to 'em the way I been talking to you, and in the