Paul neither drank nor was fast in the usual acceptation of the term, but the money at his back atoned for these deficiences, and Clarice had accepted him gladly, feeling sure she could soon cure him of his Puritanical notions and bring him up to her plane of morals. To a certain extent he was already being influenced by her in the wrong direction, when Elithe came into his life, becoming so much a part of it that the days when he did not see her lacked something which had become necessary to him. During the week she was gone he went to meet every boat, hoping to find her on it, and felt disappointed when she was not there. What was her aunt doing in Boston so long, he wondered, and once half made up his mind to go to the city and find out. It was rather a strange phase of affairs for a young man soon to be married to one girl to be thinking so much of another, but Paul did not analyze his feelings, and was inexpressibly glad when he at last ran against Elithe on the wharf, thinking her a stranger at first, and saying, “I beg pardon, Miss.” He had been looking for a blue flannel dress and hat with faded ribbons and tarnished red wing, and, not finding it, was turning away, when he backed against Elithe. “Why, Elithe,” he said, offering her his hand and taking her new satchel from her. “Why did you stay so long? It seems an age since you went away. It does, upon my soul. Hallo, Aunt Phebe! How are you? Let me take that bag.” It was not as fine looking as Elithe’s; it was old and glazed and black, and her umbrella was a cotton one loosely rolled up, but he took them both and looked like a hotel porter, as he walked beside the ladies, wondering why Elithe seemed different and more like the young girls he was to meet that afternoon at the tennis grounds on Oceanside. It dawned upon him just as the cottage was reached and he was waiting for Miss Hansford to unlock the door. Dropping the bags and umbrellas and laying his hand familiarly upon Elithe’s shoulder, he said: “I say, arn’t we gotten up swell since we went to Boston? That hat is awfully becoming to you, and that thing-em-er-jig,” indicating the front of her shirt waist. “Somebody has done you up brown.” “Is she all right?” Miss Hansford asked, beaming with delight at Paul’s commendation. “All right? I should say she was. I haven’t seen such a stunner this season,” Paul replied, warming with his subject, while Elithe blushed scarlet and tried to divert his attention from herself. Paul was not to be diverted. He had heard Clarice criticise her dress, and, with his attention thus called to it, had himself thought it old-fashioned and plain. All this was changed, and the metamorphosis so complete that he wished to show her off to his acquaintance. Following her into the cottage, he said: “The club play at the tennis court on Oceanside this afternoon. I’ll stop for you after tea if you will go. There’s lots of fun.”