Mr. Baxter cackled, cutting it short to toot his horn viciously for the benefit of a dog crossing the street two or three hundred feet away. “I’m just learning,” he explained. “So I see,” said his son, crimping his toes suddenly and then relaxing them as his father swung safely around a corner. “Only had her about six weeks.” “What can you get out of her?” “She’s a racer.” “She is?” “You bet she is. Seventy-five miles an hour.” “Gee, it’s good to hear you lie so cheerfully, dad.” “If I’d had any idea you were going to believe me, I’d have claimed a hundred,” said old Oliver, grinning. “See many changes in the town, sonny?” “I thought Mr. Sage was looking a little older.” “Well, he is a little older. We all are, for that matter. I guess you’ll find Jane has changed somewhat too. She’s twenty-one. They say she’s an uncommonly pretty girl.” “They say? Don’t you see anything of her yourself?” “See her nearly every day. I don’t take much notice of girls these days, blast the luck. She comes in every once in a while to read the letters she gets from you. Seems as though I get a good deal more news out of the letters you write to her than the ones I get from you. You never wrote anything to me about the girl you was thinking of marrying out there in Montana, or the one in China either.” “I was always careful not to write anything unpleasant to you,” said Oliver October glibly. “Umph! Well, here we are. Don’t be uneasy now. I know how to stop her.” And stop “her” he did, a dozen feet or so beyond the front porch steps. “Set still. I’ll back her up. Sort of slipped on the ice, I guess. We’ve had some mighty cold weather the last week or so.” The “uncommonly pretty girl” opened the front door. “Hello, Oliver!” she cried. “Hello, Jane!” he shouted back, as he ran up the steps. “Gee! it’s great to see you. And, my goodness, what a big girl you are. You were just an overgrown kid when I went away. Funny how a fellow never thinks of a girl growing up just the same as he does.” He was holding her warm, strong hands in his own; they were looking straight into each other’s eyes. In his there was wonder and incredulity; in hers the expression of one startled by a sudden indefinable sensation, something that came like a flash and left her strangely puzzled. “You haven’t grown much,” she said slowly. “Except that you are a man and not a boy.” “That’s it,” he cried. “The difference in you is that you’re a woman and not a girl. And I was counting on seeing you just as you were four years ago.” “Come in,” she said, with a queer dignity that she herself did not understand. “Get out of that fur coat and—and give Aunt Serepta a big hug and a dozen kisses. She’s waiting for you in the sitting-room.” He still held her hands. “Oh, I say, Jane, I—I used to kiss you when we were little kids. I—” “But we are not little kids any longer, Oliver,” she cried, drawing back.