It was after Mr. Hemmingway got his pipe that I went over to stand by Sam at a window; he had been watching me a little, and I thought perhaps he was lonely for home, or something, because he looked that way. “I think it’s a fine party,” I said, “Don’t you?” “Best ever,” he answered. Then he coughed, and fumbled around in his pocket, and slipped a small box in my hand. “I’d like to say something darned nice,” he murmured, “but all my parlor conversation seems to have gone on a vacation--” “Is it for _me_?” I asked. I was _surprised_, for I thought that the violets he had given me only a little time before, were enough! “Who the dickens _would_ I give it to?” he answered, in a half irritated way. “Think I want to give anything to the other two? I don’t! When I come to think of it, I never did want to buy any truck for _any_ other girl before--” I enjoyed that; every woman does enjoy that sort of thing. And when I opened the box I almost went over backward; it held the most beautiful bead bag I’d ever seen; it was really _prettier than any of Leslie’s_! It had a brown and gold background, and soft pink roses on it, and it swung from a gold cord, and had sliding gold rings on that. I knew he shouldn’t have done it for, even to my simple soul, it spelled a lot of money. I couldn’t say much, but I did say, “You shouldn’t have given it to me, Sam--” “Don’t you like it, dear?” he asked. I didn’t mind that “Dear” at all. In fact I liked it. I had come to think of Sam as the best friend I’d ever had. “I _love_ it,” I answered, “but it must have cost a _great deal_--” He laughed down at me. “Look here, young woman,” he said, in his drawling slow way, “Some day I’m going to _ask_ you to take over the management of my finances, but until I do, I want the privilege of buying you a little thing like that once and again--” What he said about finances worried me terribly, because I can’t add at all, and my cash account gives me real pain, and I have almost nothing to account for or to enter. But even at that, each month there is too much or too little, which makes me have to add a cream puff, or take one out. “Sam,” I said, “I’d do _anything_ for you, because I like you _so_ much, but I can’t add. Why don’t you get Mr. Wake to help you! He’s there anyway, you see, and in a year I’ll be over in America--” He slipped his arm through mine, and squeezed it against his side. “Mr. Wake is right about you,” he said, as he smiled down at me, in a sort of a funny way. “Why?” I asked. “Well, he thinks you a dear little girl. . . . And you are--just that.” “Don’t you like it?” I questioned, because it didn’t seem exactly as if he did. “Yes--surely--but, I don’t want you to get over liking me when you grow up.”