It was the second Saturday in June, and school was breaking up next week. Mrs. Mar had finished off the Braut von Messina in the dining-room, and barely begun with the Hindu Mission on the other side of the city. Hildegarde had retired to her room to watch, not for Bella’s coming (the window did not command the front), but for Mr. Mar’s going down the garden with rod and creel. What made him so dilatory to-day? While Hildegarde wondered, Bella came flying in, shut the door with agitated care, faced about with cheeks of crimson, hat over one ear and the whisper, “Hildegarde, I’ve seen him! I’ve seen him! Oh, Hildegarde, he’s here!” Wherewith she precipitated herself upon her friend’s neck and hugged her breathlessly. “Who, who?” “Why, ‘he.’ _He’s_ here! The only man I ever loved!” Hildegarde took the dancing dervish by the shoulders. “You don’t mean—” “Yes, yes, I do. He came in just before me. He’s perfectly glorious. Just to look at him makes you feel—makes you think you’ve got windmills shut up inside you. Everything goes whirling round. And when he asked” (Bella lowered her pipe to a masculine depth): “‘Is Mr. Mar at home?’ it sounded so beautiful, I thought for a moment he was talking poetry. Oh, Hildegarde! _Hildegarde!_” Again she sunk her ecstacy to whispering as she followed her friend out into the hall. Together they hung over the banisters. The visitor was talking more poetry apparently in the dining-room. The two girls stayed suspended there an eternity. At last with thumping hearts, upon Bella’s suggestion, they went down into the entry. “We’ll pretend to be putting on our overshoes. I’ll have Mrs. Mar’s!” whispered Bella, excitedly, ignoring the fact that the continued fine weather and dusty streets lent an air of eccentricity to the proceeding. She stopped after drawing on one big overshoe and shuffled softly to the dining-room door. She put her eye to the keyhole. No use. Notwithstanding Hildegarde’s whispered remonstrance, she glued her ear to the aperture. The door was suddenly opened and Miss Bella fell sideways into the arms of an astonished young man, who said: “Hello, what’s this?” Hildegarde, drowned in sympathetic confusion, helped Bella to regain her equilibrium, while she muttered the explanation “Overshoes!” “This is my daughter Hildegarde, Mr. Cheviot,” said Mr. Mar, “and this is our little friend, Bella Wayne.” “_Ch-Cheviot!_” stuttered the little friend. The young man with the laughing eyes said: “Anything wrong with the name?” and having shaken hands with “my daughter Hildegarde,” he departed. “Did you say his name was Cheviot?” Hildegarde asked her father. “Yes. The new recruit at the bank. Seems to be an intelligent sort of fellow.” * * * * *