On an April Saturday morning Carl rose with a feeling of spring. He wanted to be off in the Connecticut hills, among the silvery-gray worm-fences, with larks rising on the breeze and pools a-ripple and yellow crocus-blossoms afire by the road, where towns white and sleepy woke to find the elms misted with young green. Would there be any crocuses out as yet? That was the only question worth solving in the world, save the riddle of Ruth's heart. The staid brownstone houses of the New York streets displayed few crocuses and fewer larks, yet over them to-day was the bloom of romance. Carl walked down to the automobile district past Central Park, sniffing wistfully at the damp grass, pale green amid old gray; marveling how a bare patch of brown earth, without a single blade of grass, could smell so stirringly of coming spring. A girl on Broadway was selling wild violets, white and purple, and in front of wretched old houses down a side-street, in the negro district, a darky in a tan derby and a scarlet tie was caroling: "Mandy, in de spring De mocking-birds do sing, An' de flowers am so sweet along de ol' bayou----" Above the darky's head, elevated trains roared on the Fifty-third Street trestle, and up Broadway streaked a stripped motor-car, all steel chassis and grease-mottled board seat and lurid odor of gasoline. But sparrows splashed in the pools of sunshine; in a lull the darky's voice came again, chanting passionately, "In de spring, spring, _spring_!" and Carl clamored: "I've _got_ to get out to-day. Terrible glad it's a half-holiday. Wonder if I dare telephone to Ruth?" At a quarter to three they were rollicking down the "smart side" of Fifth Avenue. One could see that they were playmates, by her dancing steps and his absorption in her. He bent a little toward her, quick to laugh with her. Ruth was in a frock of flowered taffeta. "I won't wait till Easter to show off my spring clothes. It isn't done any more," she said. "It's as stupid as Bobby's not daring to wear a straw hat one single day after September fifteenth. Is an aviator brave enough to wear his after the fifteenth?... Think! I didn't know you then--last September. I can't understand it." "But I knew you, blessed, because I was sure spring was coming again, and that distinctly implied Ruth."