"Boston has much to be proud of," continued the girl, surprised and somewhat frightened at the rate she was bowling along. She had never before talked so freely to any one but Billy Little and Dic. "Yes, all good comes out of Boston. I've been told that if you hear her church bells toll, your soul is saved. There is a saving grace in their very tones. It came over in the _Mayflower_, as you might transport yeast. If you walk through Harvard, you will be wise; if you stand on Bunker Hill, treason flees your soul forever; and if you once gaze upon the Common, you are safe from the heresy of the Quaker and the sin of witchcraft." "I fear you are making a jest of Boston, Miss Bays," replied Williams, who shared the sensitiveness peculiar to his people. "No," she replied, "I jest only at your boasting. Your city is all you claim for it; but great virtue needs no herald." Williams remained silent for a moment, and then said, "Have you ever been in Boston?" "I? Indeed, no," she answered laughingly. "I've never been any place but to church and once to a Fourth of July picnic. I was once at a church social, but it brought me into great trouble and I shall never go to another." Williams was amused and again remained, for a time, in silent meditation. She did not interrupt him, and at length he spoke stammeringly:-- "Pardon me--where did you learn--how comes it--I am speaking abruptly, but one would suppose you had travelled and enjoyed many advantages that you certainly could not have here." "You greatly overestimate me, Mr. Williams. I have only a poor smattering of knowledge which I absorbed from two friends who are really educated men,--Mr. Little and Dic--Mr. Bright!" "Are they old--elderly men?" asked Williams. "One is," responded Rita. "Which one?" he asked. "Mr. Little." "And the other--Mr. Bright--is he young?" asked the inquisitive Bostonian. There was no need for Rita to answer in words. The color in her cheeks and the radiance of her eyes told plainly enough that Mr. Bright _was_ young. But she replied with a poor assumption of indifference:-- "I think he is nearly five years older than I." There was another betrayal of an interesting fact. She measured his age by hers. "And that would make him--?" queried Williams. "Twenty-two--nearly." "Are you but seventeen?" he asked. Rita nodded her head and answered:-- "Shamefully young, isn't it? I used to be sensitive about my extreme youth and am still a little so, but--but it can't be helped." Williams laughed, and thought he had never met so charming a girl. "Yes," he answered, "it is more or less a disgrace to be so young, but it is a fault easily overlooked." He paused for a moment while he inspected the heavens, and continued, still studying astronomy: "I mean it is not easily overlooked in some cases. Sometimes it is 'a monster of such awful mien' that one wishes to jump clear over the enduring and the pitying, and longs to embrace."