“What do you mean?” asked Walling.
“I mean you still have your five hours’ start; you haven’t lost anything by staying with the sick girl.”
Walling went back to the house. Mary was still sleeping. He touched her hand. It seemed cooler.
“Tell her I’ll write—if I can.”
“Good-bye,” said the boy.
As he went out Walling saw the men unsaddling their horses. He took off his hat to them as he rode away into the mountains.
THE FIRST GIRL
By Louise Pond Jewell
They had been talking of the Marsdens, who had just gone down with the torpedoed ship; and among the kindly and affectionate things said about them, the exceptional happiness of their married life was mentioned. Some one spoke of this as being rather surprising, as they had married so late in life; then, naturally enough, another remarked what a different world it would be if every man had been accepted by the first girl he had proposed to. And he added, that sometimes he thought that first choice was one of truer instinct, less tinctured with the world’s sophistication than any later one. The bachelor contributed with a laugh that that first girl had one advantage over the wife, no matter how perfect the latter—that she remained the ideal. And then, little by little, they came to the point of agreeing to tell, then and there, in the elegance and dignity of the clubroom suited to the indulgence of their late middle years, each one about that first girl, and what she had meant to him.
The Explorer began.