TWO weeks in succession, after going to Derlingport, Lanny spent Sunday in River-bank, and Alice enjoyed the visits immensely. Their brief separation gave zest to the mere being together again. The third Sunday Lanny did not come down, but wrote a long letter. The Derlingport nine had jumped at the chance of securing him as a pitcher; they were to give him ten dollars a game. He was mighty sorry, he wrote, that the nine's schedule included Sunday games, but every ten dollars he could pick up in that way made their wedding day come just so much nearer. He guessed, he said, that it would be all right for him to play the Sunday games in Derlingport, and in other towns than Riverbank; if Derlingport played any Sunday games in Riverbank they could get another pitcher for the games. He mentioned Roger; he had talked to the bosses of the nine, and they were willing to find a job for Old Pop, and would do so if Roger would sign up for the season, or what remained of it, but Lanny wrote that he supposed the Sunday game business would shut Roger out of that.

Alice volunteered to let David and 'Thusia read the letter—it was the first out-and-out love letter she had ever received—but they declined, feeling that to do so would be to take an unfair advantage of Alice's dutifulness, and she read them such portions as were not pure love-making. The letter came Saturday. Alice was not greatly disappointed that Lanny was not coming down, for he had suggested that he might not come. She went to church Sunday morning, and Ben Derling walked home with her. The Presbyterian Sabbath school was held in the afternoon, and about the time Lanny was warming up for the first inning of the Derlingport-Marburg ball game Alice was leading her class in singing the closing song. Below the pulpit Lucille Hardcome beat time with her jingling bracelets, and she smiled to see Ben Derling close his hymn book, and edge past his class of boys with a glance in Alice's direction. He hurried out as soon as the benediction was said, and Lucille rightly guessed that he meant to wait for Alice in the lobby, but Lucille captured Alice before she could escape.

“If you are not needed at home, Alice,” she said, “you must come with me. I have the most interesting photographs! Dozens of them, pictures of Europe. My carriage will be here directly.”

The photographs were not new. Lucille had made a flight through Europe as soon as her husband was dead. It was her first use of the money she inherited, and she had bought the photographs then—it was before the days of picture postcards.

For six months after her return she had inflicted the photographs on all her friends and acquaintances, and had then tired of them. They had reposed peacefully in a box ever since, and might have remained there forever, had she not invited Ben Derling to her house.

Lucille played a harp—a great gilded affair, and she asked Ben, who was a fair violinist, to try a duet, suggesting that they might make part of a program when she gave a concert for the church fund. Ben went willingly enough, and played as well as he could, and enjoyed the evening immensely. He found Lucille but an indifferent harpist, but willing to let him make suggestions. She asked him what he thought of a series of musical evenings, and he took to the idea enthusiastically. This was Wednesday.

Lucille's real reason for asking Ben to her house had been to study him a little more closely than she had had opportunity to do before. She mentioned Alice, and Ben was enthusiastic enough to satisfy Lucille that he liked Alice well. If Alice would be willing to try out a few things with him, piano-violin duets, it would be a pleasing part of the musical evenings, he said. Lucille thought so, too. They talked music; and Lucille happened to mention that she had first heard the harp in Paris, and Ben said he had not taken time to hear any music when he was in Europe. It was the first Lucille had heard of Ben's European tour, and she left him in her parlor while she hunted up the photographs.

She was not quite sure where they were. As she rummaged for them she thought Ben over, and almost decided he would not do as a substitute for Lanny Wesh. There was something gayly sparkling about Lanny, and Ben was anything but gay or sparkling. He was short and chunky, serious-minded and sedate. Some ancestor had given him a little greasy knob of a nose, but this was his most unpleasant feature. It is easiest, perhaps, to describe him as a thoroughly bathed young man, smelling of perfumed soap, and with yellowish hair, ever smooth and glistening from recent applications of a well-soaked hair-brush. He had no bad habits unless, in one so young, incessant application to business is a bad habit. He had taken his place in his grandfather's office the week the old man died. Already, from bending over a desk, he was a little rounded in the shoulders. His violin and his Sunday school class were his only relaxations. He was a good boy, and a good son; but Lucille was afraid he was not likely to appeal to the romantic taste of a girl like Alice. When she discovered the photographs she was inclined to leave them where they were, and tell Ben she could not find them, and let the musical evenings be forgotten. The picture that happened to be on top was one that pictured some city or cathedral of which Van Dusen had spoken when last in her home, and more for Van Dusen than for Ben she gathered the pictures in her arms, and carried them downstairs. Ben seized them eagerly.

His trip abroad had been the one great upflaring of his life. He had gone with a “party,” and had raced from place to place, but he had a memory that was infallible. His eyes brightened as he saw the photographs. He talked. He talked well. He made the pictures live. He was in his element: he would have made an admirable stereopticon lecturer had business not claimed him. He remembered dates, historical associations, little incidents that had occurred and that had the foreign tang. Before he had gone one quarter through the pile of pictures, Lucille gathered them up.

“No more to-night!” she laughed. “We young folks must have our beauty sleep,” and she sent him away. “He must show the pictures to Alice,” she said to herself. “She will be made to visit Europe when she hears him tell of it. He is quite another Ben.”

When, Sunday afternoon, Lucille found that Ben, as she had guessed, was waiting in the lobby she hailed him at once, saying:

“How fortunate! I am taking Alice to look at my European pictures. You 'll come, won't you?” Ben was eager. There was room in the carriage for him, crowding a little, which was not unpleasant when it was Alice who was crowded against him. Lucille left them with the photographs while she went to induce the maid to make a pitcher of lemonade. When she returned Ben was talking. He and Alice were seated on a couch by the window, and Alice was holding a photograph in her hands, studying it. Ben sat turned toward her; he leaned to point out some feature of the picture, and Alice asked a question. Lucille placed the pitcher of lemonade on a stand, and went out; they were doing very well without her. She felt she had made an excellent beginning; Lanny banished, and Alice at least interested in what Ben was interested in. When she interrupted them it was to suggest the musical evenings.

“It will be delightful!” Alice exclaimed. She had, for the moment, quite forgotten Lanny. The moment had, in fact, stretched to something like two hours. Ben walked home with her.