She wore a few violets at the breast of her sober little gown when she met Mark on Sunday for the promised walk. Julia had been most reluctant to go, but Maude had been moved to her own home, and the child's father was sitting with her, so that Julia had no excuse to visit her. "I want to show you something--something you'll like!" said Mark eagerly. "We take the Sixteenth Street car and transfer down Sacramento." Julia accepted his guidance good-naturedly, and they crossed the city, which lay in a clear wash of the warm September sunlight. Mark led Julia finally to the ornate door of a new apartment house in Sacramento Street. "What is it, Mark?" the girl asked, as they went in. "Some one we know live here?" "You wait!" Mark said mysteriously. He went to a desk in the handsome entrance hall, and talked for a few moments to a clerk who sat there. Then a quiet-looking, middle-aged woman came out, and Mark and Julia went upstairs with her, in a little elevator. The woman turned a key in a door, and led them into a charmingly bright front apartment of four good-sized rooms and a shining bathroom. There was a bedroom with curly-maple furniture, a dining-room with a hanging lamp of art glass on a brass chain, and Mission oak table and chairs, a kitchen delightfully convenient and completely equipped, and a little drawing-room, with a gas log, a bookshelf, a good rug, a little desk, and some rocking chairs and small tables. The sun shone in through fresh net curtains, and the high windows commanded a bright view of city roofs and a glimpse of the bay. Julia began to feel nervous and uncomfortable. She did not understand at all what Mark meant by this, but it was impossible to doubt, from his beaming face, that some plan involving her was afoot. He couldn't have furnished this apartment in the hope--? "Whose place _is_ this, Mark?" she asked, trying to laugh naturally. "Do you like it?" Mark countered, his eyes dancing. "Like it? It's simply sweet, of course! But whose is it?" "Well, now listen," Mark explained. "It's Joe Kirk's furniture; he's just been married, you know. He and his wife had just got back from their honeymoon when Joe got an offer of a fine job in New York. He asked me to see if I couldn't find a tenant for this--two years' lease to run--just as it stands; no raise in rent. And the rent's fifty-five?" he called to the woman in the next room. "Fifty, Mr. Rosenthal," she answered impassively. "Fifty!" Mark exulted. "Think of getting all this for fifty! Ah, Julia"--he came close to her as she stood staring down from the window, and lowered his voice--"will you, darling? Will you? You like it, don't you? Will you marry me, dearest, and make a little home here with me?" "Oh, Mark!" Julia stammered, a nervous smile twitching her lips. "Well, why won't you, Ju? Do you doubt that I love you? Answer me that!" "Why, no--no, I don't, of course." Julia moved a little away.