"I know it. He played hookey. He wrote a excuse an' signed his maw's name to it. Ike seen him do it. An' when the principal called up his maw this mornin' an' ast her 'bout it, she up an' said she wrote it herself." Nance was not sure whether she was called upon to admire the astuteness of Mac or his mother, so she did not commit herself. But she was keenly interested. Ever since that day in the juvenile court she had been haunted by the memory of a trim, boyish figure arrayed in white, and by a pair of large brown eyes which disdainfully refused to glance in her direction. "Say, Dan," she asked wistfully, "have you got a girl?" "Naw," said Dan disdainfully, "what do I keer about girls?" "I don't know. I thought maybe you had. I bet that there Clarke boy's got two or three." "Let him have 'em," said Dan; then, finding the subject distasteful, he added, "what's the matter with hookin' on behind that there wagon?" And suiting the action to the word, they both went in hot pursuit. After a few jolting squares during which Nance courted death with her flying skirts brushing the revolving wheels, the wagon turned into a side street, and they were obliged to walk again. "I wonder if this ain't the place?" she said, as they came in sight of a low, white house half smothered in beech-trees, with a flower garden at one side, at the end of which was a vine-covered summer-house. "Here's where I beat it!" said Dan, but before he could make good his intention, the stout little lady on the porch had spied them and came hurrying down the walk, holding out both hands. "Well, if here aren't my probationers!" she cried in a warm, comfortable voice which seemed to suggest that probationers were what she liked best in the world. "Let me see, dear, your name is Mac?" "No, ma'am, it's Dan," said that youth, trying to put out the lighted cigarette stump which he had hastily thrust into his pocket. "Ah! to be sure! And yours is--Mary?" "No, ma'am, it's Nance." "Why, of course!" cried the little lady, beaming at them, "I remember perfectly." She was scarcely taller than they were as she walked between them, with an arm about the shoulder of each. She wore a gray dress and a wide white collar pinned with a round blue pin that just matched her round blue eyes. On each side of her face was a springy white curl that bobbed up and down as she walked. "Now," she said, with an expectant air, when they reached the house. "Where shall we begin? Something to eat?" Her question was directed to Dan, and he flushed hotly. "No, ma'am," he said proudly. "Yes, ma'am," said Nance, almost in the same breath. "I vote 'Yes,' too; so the ayes have it," said Mrs. Purely gaily, leading them through a neat hall into a neat kitchen, where they solemnly took their seats.