"He wouldn't take a cent for it, either, and he saved ever so many thousand dollars. Yes, he _is_ brave. I went to the same school with him once, and saw him fight a big boy twice his size--such a nasty boy, who called me 'Fatty,' and made a kissing noise with his lips just to scare me--and poor little Cyril Winslow got awfully beaten, and when I saw him on the ground, with his nose bleeding and that big brute pounding him, I ran to the water-bucket, and poured the whole bucket on that big bullying boy and stopped the fight, just as the teacher got on the scene. I cried over little Cyril Winslow. He was crying himself. 'I ain't crying because he hurt me,' he sobbed; 'I'm crying because I'm so mad I didn't lick him!' I wonder if he remembers that episode?" "Perhaps," said Mrs. Ellis. "Maggie, what makes you think he is falling in love with Sibyl?" Mrs. Ellis laughed. "I dare say he _isn't_ in love with Sibyl," said she. "I think the main reason was his always riding by here instead of taking the shorter road down the other street." "Does he always ride by here? I hadn't noticed." "Always!" said Mrs. Ellis. "_I_ had noticed." "I am sorry for him," said Lorania, musingly. "I think Sibyl is very much taken with that young Captain Carr at the Arsenal. Young girls always affect the army. He is a nice fellow, but I don't think he is the man Winslow is. Now, Maggie, advise me about the suit. I don't want to look like the escaped fat lady of a museum." Lorania thought no more of Sibyl's love affairs. If she thought of the Winslows, it was to wish that Mrs. Winslow would sell or rent her pasture, which, in addition to her own and Mrs. Ellis' pastures thrown into one, would make such a delightful bicycle track. The Winslow house was very different from the two villas that were the pride of Fairport. A little story and a half cottage peeped out on the road behind the tall maples that were planted when Winslow was a boy. But there was a wonderful green velvet lawn, and the tulips and sweet peas and pansies that blazed softly nearer the house were as beautiful as those over which Miss Lorania's gardener toiled and worried. Mrs. Winslow was a little woman who showed the fierce struggle of her early life only in the deeper lines between her delicate eyebrows and the expression of melancholy patience in her brown eyes.