“Yes; it's nothing; it's gone already.”

“Worry?” she asked.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” he answered. “But I ought not to worry. I've got a good home, a good mother, good sisters, and—you!” And he took advantage of a high hedge and an empty lot on either side of them.

Diantha returned his kiss affectionately enough, but seemed preoccupied, and walked in silence till he asked her what she was thinking about.

“About you, of course,” she answered, brightly. “There are things I want to say; and yet—I ought not to.”

“You can say anything on earth to me,” he answered.

“You are twenty-four,” she began, musingly.

“Admitted at once.”

“And I'm twenty-one and a half.”

“That's no such awful revelation, surely!”