Mr. Schwirtz was always there when she wanted him, but he never intruded, he never was urgent. She kept him away for a week; but in their second week Mr. and Mrs. Cannon, Mr. Starr, Miss Vincent, and the pleasant couple from Gloversville all went away, and Una and Mr. Schwirtz became the elder generation, the seniors, of the boarders. They rather looked down upon the new boarders who came in--tenderfeet, people who didn't know about Bald Knob or the Glade or Hawkins's Pond, people who weren't half so witty or comfy as the giants of those golden, olden days when Mr. Cannon had ruled. Una and Mr. Schwirtz deigned to accompany them on picnics, even grew interested in their new conceptions of the presidential campaign and croquet and food, yet held rather aloof, as became the _ancien régime_; took confidential walks together, and in secret laughed enormously when the green generation gossiped about them as though they were "interested in each other," as Mr. Starr and Miss Vincent had been in the far-forgotten time. Una blushed a little when she discovered that every one thought they were engaged, but she laughed at the rumor, and she laughed again, a nervous young laugh, as she repeated it to Mr. Schwirtz. "Isn't it a shame the way people gossip! Silly billies," she said. "We never talked that way about Mr. Starr and Miss Vincent--though in their case we would have been justified." "Yes, bet they _were_ engaged. Oh, say, did I tell you about the first day I came here, and Starr took me aside, and says he--" In their hour-long talks Mr. Schwirtz had not told much about himself, though of his business he had talked often. But on an afternoon when they took a book and a lunch and tramped off to a round-topped, grassy hill, he finally confided in her, and her mild interest in him as an amiable companion deepened to sympathy.