“Thank you,” she said, sweetly, taking one. “It isn’t very good. I’ve been carrying it a long time. I had some taffy the other day.” “Oh, it’s all right,” she replied, chewing the end of hers. “Don’t you know my sister, Anna Cowperwood?” he recurred, by way of self-introduction. “She’s in a lower grade than you are, but I thought maybe you might have seen her.” “I think I know who she is. I’ve seen her coming home from school.” “I live right over there,” he confided, pointing to his own home as he drew near to it, as if she didn’t know. “I’ll see you around here now, I guess.” “Do you know Ruth Merriam?” she asked, when he was about ready to turn off into the cobblestone road to reach his own door. “No, why?” “She’s giving a party next Tuesday,” she volunteered, seemingly pointlessly, but only seemingly. “Where does she live?” “There in twenty-eight.” “I’d like to go,” he affirmed, warmly, as he swung away from her. “Maybe she’ll ask you,” she called back, growing more courageous as the distance between them widened. “I’ll ask her.” “Thanks,” he smiled. And she began to run gayly onward. He looked after her with a smiling face. She was very pretty. He felt a keen desire to kiss her, and what might transpire at Ruth Merriam’s party rose vividly before his eyes. This was just one of the early love affairs, or puppy loves, that held his mind from time to time in the mixture of after events. Patience Barlow was kissed by him in secret ways many times before he found another girl. She and others of the street ran out to play in the snow of a winter’s night, or lingered after dusk before her own door when the days grew dark early. It was so easy to catch and kiss her then, and to talk to her foolishly at parties. Then came Dora Fitler, when he was sixteen years old and she was fourteen; and Marjorie Stafford, when he was seventeen and she was fifteen. Dora Fitter was a brunette, and Marjorie Stafford was as fair as the morning, with bright-red cheeks, bluish-gray eyes, and flaxen hair, and as plump as a partridge.