"So you can't go-it's too bad! We had hoped that

when you really saw us on the way you would relent,"

said Mrs. Taylor.

"But there are many reasons; and above all Sister

Theresa needs me."

It was the voice of Olivia, a little lower, a little more

restrained than I had known it.

"But think of the rose gardens that are waiting for

us out there!" said the other lady. They were showing

her the deference that elderly women always have for

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pretty girls.

"Alas, and again alas!" exclaimed Olivia. "Please

don't make it harder for me than necessary. But I gave

my promise a year ago to spend these holidays in Cincinnati."

She ignored me wholly, and after shaking hands with

the ladies returned to the other platform. I wondered

whether she was overlooking Taylor on purpose to cut

me.

Taylor was still at his lecture on the needs of our

American merchant marine when Pickering passed hurriedly,

crossed the track and began speaking earnestly

to the girl in gray.

"The American flag should command the seas. What

we need is not more battle-ships but more freight carriers-"

Taylor was saying.

But I was watching Olivia Gladys Armstrong. In a

long skirt, with her hair caught up under a gray toque

that matched her coat perfectly, she was not my Olivia

of the tam-o'-shanter, who had pursued the rabbit; nor

yet the unsophisticated school-girl, who had suffered my

idiotic babble; nor, again, the dreamy rapt organist of

the chapel. She was a grown woman with at least

twenty summers to her credit, and there was about her

an air of knowing the world, and of not being at all a

person one would make foolish speeches to. She spoke

to Pickering gravely. Once she smiled dolefully and

shook her head, and I vaguely strove to remember where

I had seen that look in her eyes before. Her gold beads,

which I had once carried in my pocket, were clasped

tight about the close collar of her dress; and I was glad,

very glad, that I had ever touched anything that belonged

to her.

"As the years go by we are going to dominate trade

more and more. Our manufactures already lead the

world, and what we make we've got to sell, haven't we?"

demanded Taylor.

"Certainly, sir," I answered warmly.

Who was Olivia Gladys Armstrong and what was

Arthur Pickering's business with her? And what was

it she had said to me that evening when I had found her

playing on the chapel organ? So much happened that

day that I had almost forgotten, and, indeed, I had

tried to forget I had made a fool of myself for the edification

of an amusing little school-girl. "I see you

prefer to ignore the first time I ever saw you," she had

said; but if I had thought of this at all it had been

with righteous self-contempt. Or, I may have flattered

my vanity with the reflection that she had eyed me-

her hero, perhaps-with wistful admiration across the

wall.




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