Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/62

 A shout of laughter reached them from the dining room.

"That," said Armitage, "sounds as if somebody had drawn the thimble."

The next moment Ruth, crumpling the cake, had found the ring. Lovers make much of symbols.

"Do you," said Armitage, and his voice trembled a little, "believe in omens?"

Ruth's eyes, serious and inquiring, met his frankly. "Do you?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I do! I—I have to."

He knelt suddenly and took her in his arms and began to kiss her rosy face.

At that moment an all-seeing pair of eyes set in a long horse face appeared in the doorway.

To Mrs. Eaton kissing among the unmarried was no less than a deadly sin. Were the heavens about to fall? No. Armitage found Ruth's lips—she had never been kissed before—at the same moment that Ruth found his.

And Mrs. Eaton merely waited until that long kiss was about half over. And then she smiled showing her whole shelf of projecting upper teeth, and—vanished.

Very young lovers also place reliance on symbols and omens. Alice Ruggles' piece of cake had harbored the