"These are from Miss Farmer. There are some more down there."
The girls went back to his car with him, and he took out a square box, tied up with white ribbons and little silver bells, containing the bridal bouquet.
"How did you happen to get these?" Ralph asked the thin boy. "I was to go to town for them."
The messenger swallowed. "Miss Farmer told me if there were any other flowers at the station marked for here, I should bring them along."
"That was nice of her." Ralph thrust his hand into his trousers pocket. "How much? I'll settle with you before I forget."
A pink flush swept over the boy's pale face,—a delicate face under ragged hair, contracted by a kind of shrinking unhappiness. His eyes were always half-closed, as if he did not want to see the world around him, or to be seen by it. He went about like somebody in a dream. "Miss Farmer," he whispered, "has paid me."
"Well, she thinks of everything!" exclaimed one of the girls.
"You used to go to school to Gladys, didn't you, Irv?"
"Yes, mam." He got into his car without opening the door, slipping like an eel round the steering-rod, and drove off.
The girls followed Ralph up the gravel walk toward the house. One whispered to the others: "Do you suppose Gladys will come out tonight with Bayliss Wheeler? I always thought she had a pretty warm spot in her heart for Claude, myself."
Some one changed the subject. "I can't get over hearing Irv talk so much. Gladys must have put a spell on him."