“Was that all?”
“Oh, no, there was a verse, in the oddest handwriting. I wonder who sent it?”
“Perhaps Ralph,” I hazarded ecstatically.
“Ralph couldn't write poetry,” she replied disdainfully. “Besides, it was very good poetry.”
I suggested other possible authors and admirers. She rejected them all. We reached her gate, and I lingered. As she looked down at me from the stone steps her eyes shone with a soft light that filled me with radiance, and into her voice had come a questioning, shy note that thrilled the more because it revealed a new Nancy of whom I had not dreamed.
“Perhaps I'll meet you again—coming from school,” I said.
“Perhaps,” she answered. “You'll be late to dinner, Hugh, if you don't go....”
I was late, and unable to eat much dinner, somewhat to my mother's alarm. Love had taken away my appetite.... After dinner, when I was wandering aimlessly about the yard, Tom appeared on the other side of the fence.
“Don't ever ask me to do that again,” he said gloomily.
I did meet Nancy again coming from school, not every day, but nearly every day. At first we pretended that there was no arrangement in this, and we both feigned surprise when we encountered one another. It was Nancy who possessed the courage that I lacked. One afternoon she said:—“I think I'd better walk with the girls to-morrow, Hugh.”