There are few perfect days in life that stand out golden, untarnished, with no flaws or worrisome little details to bar the way of loving memory; but that Saturday was one for Joy. As they rode far into the country, past orchards and immaculate white New England farmhouses, the hours seemed to be resting motionless, while they talked aimlessly and with long, happy silences, shyly sitting as near together as they dared. Time, as well as everything else, had gone away and left them alone. They ate beside a pebble-hindered brook, with tall trees gossiping above them. There were not even mosquitoes to hum their way through the rainbow haze in which the two were lingering. A large and elaborate repast had been put up for them, but Joy could not eat. He, too, seemed to find difficulty in raising any enthusiasm over the luncheon, and looked at her instead. Finally they gravely repacked the almost unimpaired repast, then looked at each other over the basket. Because they were young and American, they laughed. “It’s too hot to eat now,” said Grant, recovering hastily; “we’ll take out the basket again later, when we get hungry.” “That’s what I thought, too,” said Joy, with dancing eyes. It was so peaceful by the brook; she had not realised how the hectic life in the apartment had been wearing upon her. She closed her eyes with a little shiver of ecstasy. “Let’s stay here a little while,” she said. “It’s nice under the trees.” “I was just going to suggest that,” said Grant. “We think the same in almost everything, don’t we?” How many millions of lovers have “thought the same”—lovers are distanced in tastes, likes and dislikes, ideas and ideals, as the poles are distanced one from the other! “Yes,” said Joy dreamily. By now they had passed into the “you and I” stage. They drifted into what they thought was a discussion of modern education; but he was telling her about his years at Harvard. He had just graduated; Packy’s class. “But Packy and I never ran together much,” he said. “Packy is a natural-born fusser; I’ve always been more or less of a woman-hater.” “They say woman-haters are really the most romantic,” said Joy lightly. “Well, they usually have the highest ideals; that’s what makes ’em dislike most women. I had almost impossibly high ideals; so high that I was getting afraid I’d never meet her.” Silence. A twig fell from a tree, and the two started. “I said,” said Grant, looking up at a patch of sky through the branches while Joy plucked a blade of grass into tiny bits; “I said—I _was_ getting afraid I’d never meet her.” A throbbing stillness in the woods; then Joy spoke breathlessly. “So—was I,” she said. A blue-jay shrieked discordantly from near by, and with a hitch, they resumed more general subjects. Somehow, when one talks about ideals, one always gets personal. “Girls nowadays don’t encourage men to look up to them,” said Grant. “There isn’t the respect there used to be—and the girls don’t seem to miss it.”