He had lingered over his luncheon that noon as long as he could, and then he was rewarded. The man who had first brought him there entered and took a seat beside him. When the young lady in brown came for his order the new-comer shook hands with her cordially, and called her "Miss Edna." "She used to go to school with my sister," he explained to the young Southwesterner. "She's up at the Normal College now, and I've never seen her here in the dining-room before. But she has a holiday, and I suppose she thought she ought to help her mother out. It's her mother who cooks, you know--and boss cooking it is, too, isn't it?--real home sort of flavor about it." Filson Shelby had still delayed his departure; and as Edna Leisler brought bread and butter, and went back again to the kitchen, his friend's chatter had streamed along. "Red-hot hair, hasn't she?" was the next remark. "If there was half a dozen more of her you'd think it was a torchlight procession, wouldn't you? But it suits her style, don't it? Fact is, she's the only red-haired girl I ever saw I didn't hate at sight." It seemed as though he had expected Filson to respond to this, and so the young Southwesterner hesitated, and cleared his throat, and admitted that her hair was red. "Well, it _is_ just," the other returned. "I guess her barber has to wear asbestos gloves, eh? But she's a good girl, Edna is, if she is a brand from the burning. My sister used to be very fond of her, and I like her myself, though she isn't in our set exactly. I'll introduce you, if you like?" The cable-car now came to a halt sharply to set down passengers for Brooklyn by way of the bridge, but Filson Shelby was wholly unconscious of this. He was busy with the recollection of that winter day when he had stood up with bashful awkwardness and had heard Edna Leisler say that she was pleased to meet him. He had the memory also of the next Saturday, when he had gone back to the little low eating-room under the roof in the hope of seeing her again, and of the unaffected frankness of her manner towards him when he met her on the stairway. He remembered how simply she had accepted his invitation to go to Central Park to lunch on Washington's Birthday, the first holiday when they were both free, and he remembered, too, what a good time they had up there. It was on that Washington's Birthday that he had first found out that in the eyes of some people red hair was not a blemish, but a beauty. The omnibus in which they came down-town had been so crowded that they were separated, and he heard one well-dressed man say to his companion: "Did you ever see such stunning hair as that girl has? It is like burnished copper--except when the sun glints on it, and then it's like spun gold."