Miss Mink pushed open the gate and led the way into her narrow yard. She usually entered the house by way of the side door which opened into the dining room, which was also her bedroom by night, and her sewing room by day. But this morning, after a moment's hesitation, she turned a key in the rusty lock of the front door, and let a flood of sunshine dispel the gloom of the room. The parlor had been furnished by Miss Mink's parents some sixty years ago, and nothing had been changed. A customer had once suggested that if the sofa was taken away from the window, and the table put in its place, the room would be lighter. Miss Mink had regarded the proposition as preposterous. One might as well have asked her to move her nose around to the back of her head, or to exchange the positions of her eyes and ears! You have seen a drop of water caught in a crystal? Well, that was what Miss Mink was like. She moved in the tiniest possible groove with her home at one end and her church at the other. Is it any wonder that when she beheld a strange young foreigner sitting stiffly on her parlor sofa, and realized that she must entertain him for at least an hour, that panic seized her? "I better be seeing to dinner," she said hastily. "You can look at the album till I get things dished up." Private Bowinski, surnamed Alexis, sat with knees awkwardly hunched and obediently turned the leaves of the large album, politely scanning the placid countenances of departed Minks for several generations. Miss Mink, moving about in the inner room, glanced in at him from time to time. After the first glance she went to the small store room and got out a jar of sweet pickle, and after the second she produced a glass of crab apple jelly. Serving a soldier guest who had voluntarily adopted her country, was after all not so distasteful, if only she did not have to talk to him. But already the coming ordeal was casting its baleful shadow. When they were seated opposite one another at the small table, her worst fears were realized. They could neither of them think of anything to say. If she made a move to pass the bread to him he insisted upon passing it to her. When she rose to serve him, he rose to serve her. She had never realized before how oppressive excessive politeness could be. The one point of consolation for her lay in the fact that he was enjoying his dinner. He ate with a relish that would have flattered any hostess. Sometimes when he put his knife in his mouth she winced with apprehension, but aside from a few such lapses in etiquette he conducted himself with solemn and punctilious propriety. When he had finished his second slice of pie, and pushed back his chair, Miss Mink waited hopefully for him to say good-bye. He was evidently getting out his car fare now, searching with thumb and forefinger in his vest pocket. "If it is not to trouble you more, may I ask a match?" he said.