sleep again.

She loved Polktown. The Middle-West community where she was born and had lived most of her girlhood was a tender memory to Janice. Her dear mother had died there, and for several years her father and she had lived very close to each other in their mutual sorrow.

In Greenboro, however, she had had little opportunity for that development of character which contact with the world, with strangers and with new conditions, is sure to bring. She had been merely a schoolgirl at home with "daddy" before coming East to live with Uncle Jason and Aunt 'Mira. In Polktown she had found herself.

It may have been thought of this that curved her lips in the contemplative smile they wore, blossomed the roses in her cheeks, and added the sparkle to her hazel eyes as she tripped along.

To the view of many in Polktown Janice Day was pretty; but in a certain pair of eyes that beheld her to-day while yet she was a great way off, she was the embodiment of everything that was good and beautiful.

Nelson Haley, coming out of the new graded school, of which he was the very capable and unusually beloved principal, owned this particular pair of eyes. He hastened his steps to the corner of the cross street on which the schoolhouse stood and overtook the girl.

"Going right by without noticing me, I presume?" he said, lifting his hat, a frank smile upon his very youthful countenance.

"Of course, Nelson," she said, giving him her hand for a moment and gazing directly into his earnest eyes. That touch and look thrilled them both. Nelson dropped into step with her and they went on down the hill for several moments in a silence which, to these two who knew each other so well, suggested a more certain understanding than speech.

It was Nelson who said as they turned into High Street:

"What meaneth the smile, Janice? What is the immediate thought in that demure head of yours? Something amusing, I'm sure."

Janice laughed outright, flashing him an elfish glance. "I was thinking of something."

"Of course. Out with it," he told her. "Confession is good for the soul and removes the tantalizing element of curiosity."

"Oh, it's not a matter for the confessional. I was just remembering a certain person who arrived in this town not much more than three years ago, and how different she was then—and how different the town!—from the present."

"I acknowledge the immense change which has come over the town; but you, my dear, in your nature and character are as changeless as the hills—even as the Green Mountains of old Vermont."

"Why! I don't know whether that is a compliment or not, Nelson," she cried. "Daddy says the man who doesn't change his politics and his religious outlook in twenty years is dead. They have merely neglected to bury him."

"The fundamentals cannot change," the philosophical young schoolmaster observed. "You have developed, dear girl; but the bud that is blossoming into the flower of your womanhood was curled in the leaf of your character when you first looked at Polktown from the deck of the old Constance Colfax."

"Why, Nelson! that is almost poetical," she said, glancing at him again as they walked side by side toward the dock at the foot of Polktown's principal business thoroughfare. "And whether it is poetry or not I like it," she added, dimpling again.

"Oh, my dear! how different the place looked that day from what it is now. Why, it was only known as Poketown! And it was the pokiest, most rubbishy, lackadaisical village I ever saw. Just think of its original name being lost by years of careless pronunciation! The people had even forgotten that sterling old patriot, Hubbard Polk, who first settled here and defied the 'Yorkers.'"

Janice laughed with a reflective note in her voice. "Why, when they cleaned up the town—— Will you ever forget Polktown's first Clean-Up Day, Nelson?"

"Never," chuckled the young man. "Such a shaking up of the dry bones, both literal and metaphorical!"

"I can see," said Janice more quietly, "that Polktown has changed and developed whether I have or not. We certainly have learned——"

"To do something," finished Nelson with emphasis. "That's it exactly. The teachings instilled into his daughter's mind by that really wonderful man, Mr. Broxton Day, to the end that she is always eager to begin the battle while other folk are merely talking about it, has served to put Polktown on the map."

Janice squeezed his arm, dimpling and smiling. "Dear daddy!" she mused. "If he only could get away from business affairs and come out of distracted Mexico to spend his time here in peace and quiet."

"'Peace and quiet!'" repeated the schoolmaster. "Ask Walky Dexter what he thinks of that. If your father sustains the reputation his daughter has given him, Polktown would be prodded into an even more strenuous existence than that of our recent successful campaign for no license. Walky believes, Janice, you have all the characteristics of a capsicum plaster."

"Now, Nelson!"

"Fact! You ask him. You're the greatest counter-irritant that was ever applied to any dead-and-alive settlement.... 'Lo, Walky!"

The village expressman, as well known as the town pump and quite as important, drew the bony and sleepy Josephus to an abrupt stop beside the smiling pair of young people. Walky's broad, wind-blown countenance was a-grin and his eyes twinkled as he broke into speech:

"Jefers-pelters! d'you know what I caught myself a-doin' when I seen you two folks goin' down hill ahead of me?"

"I couldn't guess, Walky. What?" asked Janice.

"Whistlin' that there 'Bridle March' they play on the church organ when there's a weddin'—haw! haw! haw!"

Janice colored rosily, but could not refrain from laughter at Walky's crude joke. Nobody could be very angry with Walky Dexter, no matter what he said or did.

"That's a poor brand of humor you are peddling, old man," said the schoolmaster coolly. "Besides, you don't pronounce the word right. It's 'bri-dal' not 'bridle.' You speak it as though it were a part of Josephus' harness."

"Young man," responded Walky solemnly, but with a twinkle in his watery eye, "when they play that march for you ye'll find ye're harnessed all right. I been merried thutty year now and I oughter know if 'tain't a 'bridle' march and a halter they lead ye to 'stead of a altar."

He exploded another laugh in approval of his own wit and rattled on down to the dock. There was little self-consciousness in the manner of the schoolmaster and Janice. They looked at each other understandingly again and smiled.

Why seek to hide an obvious fact? Every person in Polktown who had arrived at the age of understanding and was not yet senile knew that Nelson Haley and Janice Day had "made a match of it." Only the girl's youth and the necessity for the young man to become established in his calling precluded the thought of matrimony for the present. But they were sure of their feeling for each other. Both had been tested in the months that had passed since Nelson came to Polktown fresh from his college course and had shown Janice that he could "make good." There had been conflict in both their lives; there had even been clash in their opinions; but the foundation of their affection for each other was too well established for either to doubt.

The simple romance of their lives seemed very sweet indeed to those of their friends whose eyes were not holden. Nelson Haley and Janice Day were at the beginning of that path which, if sometimes rugged and steep to the travelers thereon, is primrose strewn.

They passed one of the