"The pork and beans are elegant to-night," suggested the girl. And "Pork and beans! NO!" thundered Florian. The girl drew herself up icily. "I ain't deef. You don't need to yell." Florian looked up at her contritely, and smiled his winning smile. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean--I--I never want to see beans again as long as I live!" He was down at the store early, early next morning. His practised eye swept the department for possible slackness, for changes, for needed adjustments. The two Maine ex-guides and the chap who knew the Rockies like the palm of his hand welcomed him with Judas-like slaps on the shoulder. "Like it?" they asked him. And, "God's country--the West," he answered, mechanically. After that he ignored them. At nine he ran down the two flights of stairs to the third floor. He did not wait for the elevator. For a moment he could not find her and his heart sank. She might be away on a vacation. Then he spied her in a corner half-hidden by a rack of covert coats. She was hanging them up. The floor was empty of customers thus early. He strode over to her. She turned. Into her eyes there leaped a look which she quickly veiled as had been taught her by a thousand thousand female ancestors. "I got your postals," she said. Florian said nothing. "My, you're brown!" Florian said nothing. "Did you--have a good time?" Florian said nothing. "What--what----" Her hand went to her throat, where his eyes were fastened. Then Florian spoke. "How white your throat is!" he said. "How white your throat is!" Myra stepped out, then, from among the covert coats on the rack. Her head was lifted high on the creamy column that supported it. She had her pride, had Myra. "It's no whiter than it was a month ago, that I can see." "I know it." His tone was humble, with a little pleading note in it. "I know a lot of things that I didn't know a month ago, Myra." THE SUDDEN SIXTIES Hannah Winter was sixty all of a sudden, as women of sixty are. Just yesterday--or the day before, at most--she had been a bride of twenty in a wine-coloured silk wedding gown, very stiff and rich. And now here she was, all of a sudden, sixty. The actual anniversary that marked her threescore had had nothing to do with it. She had passed that day painlessly enough--happily, in fact. But now, here she was, all of a sudden, consciously, bewilderingly, sixty. This is the way it happened!