The St. Johns herald., 1922-07-27

not the Milla Rust who sat beside him, but an iridescent, fragile creature who had become angelic.
 He spent the rest of the day daw- ding heIplessly about her; wherever she went he was near, as near as pos sible, but of no deliberate volition of his own. Something seemed to tie him to her, and Milla was nothing 10th. He seldom looked at her directly, or for longer thar an instant, and mora rarely still did he speak to her except as a reply. What few remarks he ventured upon his own initiative near 1 ly all concerned the landscape, which he commended repeatedly in a weak voice, as ''kind of pretty" though once he said he guessed there might be bugs in the bark of log on which they sat {; and he became so immoderately per sOnal as to declare that if the bugs had to get on anybody he'd rather they got on him than on Milla. She said that was "just perfectly lovely" of him, asked where he got his sweet nature, and in other ways encouraged | AAAAh lO NOhlAAAuC lllC ACNCAdNAOhs OAA Ramsey was unable to get forward with 1t, though he opened and closed his mouth great many times in the effort to do so.
 At five o'clock everybody was sum- mOned again to the rendezvous for ceremony preliminary to departure; the class found itself in a large circle, standing, and sang '"The Star Spangled Banner Ordinarily, on such an open air and Out-of-schOOl occasion, Ramsey would have joined the chorus uprOar- iOuSly with the utmost blatancy of which his vocal apparatus was capa- ble; and most of the other boys ex- pressed their humor by drowning out the serious efforts of the girls; but he sang feebly, not much more than humming through his teeth. Standing beside Milla, he was incapable of his former inelegancies and his voice was In semi-paralyzed condition, like the rest of him.
 Opposite him, across the circle, Dora YOcum stood a little In advance of those near her, for of course she led the singing. Her clear and earnest voice was distinguishable from all others, and though she did not glance toward Ramsey he had a queer feeling that she was assuming more superior ity than ever, and that she was icily scOrnfuI of him and Milla. The old resentment rose-he'd show" that girl yet, some day!
 When the song was over, cheers were given for the class, "the good ole class of Nineteen Fourteen" the school, the teachers, and for the pie nic, thus officially concluded; and then the picnickers, carrying their baskets and faded wild flowers and other sou venirs and burdens, moved toward the big "express wagons" which were to take them back into the town. Ram sey got his guitar case, and turned to Milla.
 "Well-g'by."
 "Why, no," said MiIla. Anyway, not yet. You can go back in the same wagon with me. It's going to stop at the school and let us all out there, and then you could walk home with me if you felt like It."
 "Well-well, I'd be perfectly will ing" Ramsey said. "Only I heard we all had to go back in whatever wagon we came out in, and I didn't come in the same one with you, so-"
 Mllla laughed and leaned toward him q little. 'T already tended to that" she said confdentially. "I asked Johnnie Fiske, that came out in my wagon, to go back in yours, so that makes room for you"
 "Well-then I guess I could do it." He moved toward the wagon with her. q expect 1t don't make much difcer- ence one way or the other"
 And you can carry my basket If you want to-" she said, adding solicit ously, unless it's too heavy when you already got your guitar case to carry, Ramsey"
 This thoughtfulness of hers almost overcame him; she seemed divine.
 '-Tll be glad to carry the basket, too," he faltered. "It-it don't weigh anything much"
 ''Well, let's hurry, sos we can get places together"
 Then, as she maneuvered him through the little crowd about the wagon, with a soft push this way and a gentle pull that, and hurried him up the improvised steps and found a place where there was room for them both to sit, Ramsey had another breathless sensation heretofore unknown to him. He found himself taken under a dove like protectOrship; wonderful, inex- pressible Being seemed to have become his proprietor.
 'Isn't this just perfectly lovely?" | zos5 oo1iIu oIOSo- A0 b{s oo-