"How did you happen to get these?" Ralph asked the thin boy. "I was to go to town for them." The messenger swallowed. "Miss Farmer told me if there were any other flowers at the station marked for here, I should bring them along." "That was nice of her." Ralph thrust his hand into his trousers pocket. "How much? I'll settle with you before I forget." A pink flush swept over the boy's pale face,--a delicate face under ragged hair, contracted by a kind of shrinking unhappiness. His eyes were always half-closed, as if he did not want to see the world around him, or to be seen by it. He went about like somebody in a dream. "Miss Farmer," he whispered, "has paid me." "Well, she thinks of everything!" exclaimed one of the girls. "You used to go to school to Gladys, didn't you, Irv?" "Yes, mam." He got into his car without opening the door, slipping like an eel round the steering-rod, and drove off. The girls followed Ralph up the gravel walk toward the house. One whispered to the others: "Do you suppose Gladys will come out tonight with Bayliss Wheeler? I always thought she had a pretty warm spot in her heart for Claude, myself." Some one changed the subject. "I can't get over hearing Irv talk so much. Gladys must have put a spell on him." "She was always kind to him in school," said the girl who had questioned the silent boy. "She said he was good in his studies, but he was so frightened he could never recite. She let him write out the answers at his desk." Ralph stayed for lunch, playing about with the girls until his mother telephoned for him. "Now I'll have to go home and look after my brother, or he'll turn up tonight in a striped shirt." "Give him our love," the girls called after him, "and tell him not to be late." As he drove toward the farm, Ralph met Dan, taking Claude's trunk into town. He slowed his car. "Any message?" he called. Dan grinned. "Naw. I left him doin' as well as could be expected." Mrs. Wheeler met Ralph on the stairs. "He's up in his room. He complains his new shoes are too tight. I think it's nervousness. Perhaps he'll let you shave him; I'm sure he'll cut himself. And I wish the barber hadn't cut his hair so short, Ralph. I hate this new fashion of shearing men behind the ears. The back of his neck is the ugliest part of a man." She spoke with such resentment that Ralph broke into a laugh. "Why, Mother, I thought all men looked alike to you! Anyhow, Claude's no beauty." "When will you want your bath? I'll have to manage so that everybody won't be calling for hot water at once." She turned to Mr. Wheeler who sat writing a check at the secretary. "Father, could you take your bath now, and be out of the way?" "Bath?" Mr. Wheeler shouted, "I don't want any bath! I'm not going to be married tonight. I guess we don't have to boil the whole house for Enid."