His question was carried gravely in her mind, and she forbore to resume the subject until she could say something wise and practical. They met often, there were so many affairs during the summer to bring them together, hops, drives, and picnics, and then the camp-meetings, which brought out all the county. She saw him sometimes in attendance on his mother there, always gentlemanly and good, where the other boys were openly rowdy. She saw him in the store, always patient with the freaks of customers and with the cross humors of his uncle. And one day she met him (and her heart was touched) carrying along the road a little crying child, whose bare toes were crinkled up with the hurt from a sharp stone. The ragamuffin sat perched upon the broad shoulder and peered down at the lady with eyes of cerulean blue. He hugged his friend a little closer but with undiminished confidence. Albert colored slightly, but walked along beside the stylish girl without apologizing for his burden. "Can't I do something for the little fellow?" she asked gently, and being used to children (she was a school teacher), she saw in a minute what the matter was, and taking from her purse a piece of court-plaster, she made Albert set him down while she applied it to the cut. If her fingers shrank from the dirty little foot neither of her watchers saw it. "There, little man, does that feel better?" "I wants ter b' toted," said the urchin, irrelevantly. "Of course," said Albert, shouldering him again. "Didn't I promise to carry you clear home? But if the lady had done something for me, I'd have thanked her, heh?" But the child's face expressed only a vacant sort of contentment. And they all went on together until they reached a poor house where a woman stood at the door, looking anxiously up and down the road. As her boy was brought to her, she caught him up, with a shake and a kiss delivered simultaneously. "That's jus' like ye, Albert," she said gruffly. "I've been ter'ble worried fur th' past hour--feared he'd got runned over. Yer ma well?" "Middling, thank you, Mrs. Smithers." Then he rubbed his handkerchief over his forehead and asked Miss Stretton if she was going "to town" this hot day. "Yes, I'm trying to walk off a restless fit, and I have a letter to mail." "Better give that to me. See, I've picked up three or four along the road and got half-a-dozen commissions--hope I shan't forget 'em." "Are you general errand-boy?" she demanded impatiently. "You wouldn't want me to be unneighborly? Besides," he added with a twinkle in his eye, "I thought you found fault with me for not being useful!" "Oh, no, not in that way. Don't you suppose I see that you are useful here, that everybody likes you and depends upon you--but it is such a waste of yourself to be busied with such little things--there are larger places to be filled elsewhere----"