"Well, it was this: that final gesture of yours is awfully effective. You know the one I mean, your hands shut on your stole just at your shoulders? I hate to have you give it up; but, really, I'm afraid you'll have to. In the long run, it is bound to get your stoles shabby, especially the white one; and, now I have all the--the little things to make, I can't keep embroidering new stoles. After this, when you see me making up the face I put on, this morning, you'll please remember it must be 'hands down'. Another olive? Take them away then, Mary." That same afternoon, Reed Opdyke was astounded to receive a long call from his recreant parson. CHAPTER FIFTEEN "Where away?" With the question, Dolph Dennison flung himself into step at Olive Keltridge's side, one morning in late January. Two inches of snow crackling under foot and a coating of hoarfrost on all the elm trees was answering as a fair substitute for winter; and the blood of both young people was tingling with even that unwonted sting. Nevertheless, though walking briskly, Olive had been lost in a brown study, and she started, as Dolph's genial hail fell on her ears. Then she nodded gayly. "Ditto. Why aren't you in class?" she demanded. "It's low-minded to be eternally talking shop," he told her. "Why can't you for once let me delude myself into the belief that I'm like a lily of the field, without a spinning wheel in sight?" "A lily in a fur-lined coat!" Olive's accent was disdainful. "You ought to be ashamed to be rolled up like this, this splendid morning." Dolph eyed her seal jacket accusingly. "I am," he confessed. "I'm immensely proud of my fur lining, and I hate like thunder to go out, buttoned up. One might as well be lined with quilted farmer satin, with an imitation-mink shawl collar, for all the glory he gets out of winter. That's where you women score; you wear your wool outside." "Yes; but we don't turn up our collars, a day like this," Olive mocked him. "Really, Dolph, you're growing soft. But you haven't answered my question. Why aren't you at a class?" "You're so beastly insistent, Olive. What's the use? If you must know, I've given the dear children a cut, this morning. One of them came prowling into class, all broken out with mumps; that is, if you can call it broken out, when there is only one of it and as large as a camel's hump. Anyhow, I freely offered them a cut, and advised them all to go to their homes and to disinfect themselves with due discretion." "And you?" Olive inquired. "Me? I'm immune. I haven't cheek enough to begin to swell up like that. Accordingly, I am merely taking a walk, while I cultivate my muse." "And I'm to be the muse's understudy?" Olive laughed. "Thank you, I'm otherwise engaged." "You looked it, when I met you. What's doing?" "Household economics. I'm going the rounds of the basement bargain counters, hunting dish towelling." "What's the use?"