"I did go into one of the big stores, and it sort of scared me--everything so stuffy and heaped up, and such a lot of people. I don't get down to Baltimore very often, you see. I do most of my buying right in Frederick, but I'd broke my disker, and if you send, it's maybe weeks before the implement house will 'tend to you. So I just come down and got the piece, so there won't be but one day lost." The girl looked up at him again, and he could feel his heart pound against his ribs. This time she was a little wistful. "They say it's real pretty country out round Frederick. I've never been out of Baltimore, 'cept to go down the bay on excursions--Betterton and Love Point, and places like that. It makes a grand sail in hot weather." She handed him the package and picked up the two bills he had laid down on the counter. There was plainly no reason for his further lingering. But he had an artful idea. "Look here--maybe I ought to get Aunt Dolcey a white apron, too. Maybe she won't want the gingham ones at all." The girl looked surprised at such extravagance. "But if she doesn't you can bring 'em back when you come to Baltimore again, and we'd exchange 'em," she argued mildly. "No, I better get a white one now. She puts on a white apron evenings," he added craftily. A box of white aprons was lifted from the shelf and a choice made, but even that transaction could not last forever, as Wesley Dean was desperately aware. "Look here, are you Miss Tolman?" he burst out. "I saw the name outside on the window." "Mercy, no! Miss Tolman's a kind of cousin of mine. She's fifty-two, and she can't hardly get through that door there." He disregarded the description, for the second bundle was being tied up fast. He had never seen any one tie so fast, he thought. "My name's Wesley Dean, and I got a farm in the mountains back of Frederick. Say--I don't want you to think I'm fresh, but--but--say, would you go to the movies with me to-night?" It had come to him in a flash that he could disregard the seat in the four-o'clock bus and go back to-morrow morning. Sweat stood out on his forehead and on his curving, clean-shaven upper lip. His boy's eyes hung on hers, pleading. All the happiness of his life, he felt, waited for this girl's answer, this little yellow-haired girl whom he had never seen until a quarter of an hour before. "We-ell," she hesitated, "I--I don't like to have you think I'd pick up like this with any fellow that come along----" "I don't think so!" he broke in fiercely. "If I thought so I'd never've asked you." There was a strange breathless moment in the tiny cluttered shop, a moment such as some men and women are lucky enough to feel once in a lifetime. It is the moment when the heart's wireless sends its clear message, "This is my woman" and "This is my man." The flaxen-haired girl and the dark boy were caught in the golden magic of it and, half scared, half ecstatic, were thrown into confusion.