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 its author, some of the pleasure evaporated from their presumed peccancy. They bent over numbers of Stone and Kimball's new Chap-Book, sitting side by side, Gareth particularly attracted by some sketches by an unknown writer named Max Beerbohm, because, as Gareth quickly ascertained, this Max was a brother of Beerbohm Tree and had visited America in his company, Lennie finding more pleasure in Henry James's novel, What Maisie Knew, which was still running in these pages. Almost all their mutual conversation concerned itself with literature and the drama; there were sides to Gareth's nature, depths, she sometimes sensed, Lennie was quite aware, with which she was unfamiliar. He was, she knew, making a collection of the eggs of native birds, and when, a day or so earlier, he had informed her that he was going up the river to search for the eggs of the bank swallow, she had asked him if she might accompany him. To this suggestion he had offered no objection, had, indeed, greeted it with enthusiasm.

Lennie Colman lived on Marshall Street, a thoroughfare running parallel with the railroad tracks, a block or two above them. Gareth's home was farther uptown, and it was arranged that he should call for her on a certain afternoon, about one o'clock, that is immediately following Maple Valley's traditional dinner hour.

It was a very hot day, even for Iowa; the sun was bright; there were no clouds in the sky, when Gareth