He was not, by any means, a reveler. His life had been little more than a series of walks to business. But those were the words that came to him, catching her adorable freshness of body and mind, and determining to keep it untouched by dusty old pantaloons such as he saw himself. Nan stood for a minute paling out under his eyes, and then drew away from him and left the room, her braid-crowned head high. She had to meet him at dinner, and he knew she had cried and Aunt Anne knew it and was hard on her over the little things she could reprove her for, in a silky, affectionate way, and Raven's heart swelled until he thought they both must know its congestion, and tried to put round it another bond of quiet, kind affection. Since that time, Nan had never kissed him; but now, this two months since the death of Aunt Anne, she had adopted a greeting of her own. She put her hands on his arm and bent her forehead for a minute to his shoulder. The first time she did it, he wanted to kiss the bright hair, but forbade himself, and the second time he said, he was so curious over it: "A rite?" She was ready with her answer. He suspected she must have thought it out ingeniously beforehand. "It's because I'm sorry for you." "Sorry?" he repeated. "Yes," she said, "about Aunt Anne." Then he realized she was sorry because Aunt Anne was dead, and he was more and more conscious of the unbecoming lightness and freedom where he found himself at the death of Aunt Anne. He had not dared acknowledge it to himself. He couldn't, for shame. But whereas, in the past years, when he ventured to formulate his own life a little and see what it had done to him and how he could go on meeting it, he had had a sense of harassment and of being driven too hard, after Aunt Anne's death he began to recognize the stillness of the space she had left behind. Now to-day, before Nan had accomplished the little rite of the bowed head on his shoulder, something queer about it seemed to strike Dick, and he said to her: "He's your uncle, too, you know." Raven took this with composure, as signifying the length as well as the depth of his adoptive relation toward her, but Nan met it with resentment. She left him and turned upon Dick. "Now what," she said, "do you mean by that?" "Why, Nan," said the poor youth, keeping a stiff upper lip, because he recognized the signs of an approaching squabble, "I've told him. I'll tell him again. Jack, we're engaged." "We're nothing of the sort," said Nan, either in pure surprise or an excellent simulation of it. Dick met this doggedly. "We are, too," he said. "You promised me."