Therefore, the two miserable printers were back in their places the next afternoon.  They told each other that the theatre they had planned wasn’t so much after all; and anyhow your father and mother didn’t last all your life, and it was better to do what they wanted, and be polite while they were alive.

And on Saturday the new Oriole, now in every jot and item the inspired organ of feminism, made its undeniably sensational appearance.

A copy, neatly folded, was placed in the hand of Noble Dill, as he set forth for his place of business, after lunching at home with his mother.  Florence was the person who placed it there; she came hurriedly from somewhere in the neighbourhood, out of what yard or alley he did not notice, and slipped the little oblong sheet into his lax fingers.

“There!” she said breathlessly.  “There’s a good deal about you in it this week, Mr. Dill, and I guess—­I guess——­”

“What, Florence?”

“I guess maybe you’ll——­” She looked up at him shyly; then, with no more to say, turned and ran back in the direction whence she had come.  Noble walked on, not at once examining her little gift, but carrying it absently in fingers still lax at the end of a dangling arm.  There was no life in him for anything.  Julia was away.

Away!  And yet the dazzling creature looked at him from sky, from earth, from air; looked at him with the most poignant kindness, yet always shook her head!  She had answered his first letter by a kind little note, his second by a kinder and littler one, and his third, fourth, fifth, and sixth by no note at all; but by the kindest message (through one of her aunts) that she was thinking about him a great deal.  And even this was three weeks ago.  Since then from Julia—­nothing at all!

But yesterday something a little stimulating had happened.  On the street, downtown, he had come face to face, momentarily, with Julia’s father; and for the first time in Noble’s life Mr. Atwater nodded to him pleasantly.  Noble went on his way, elated.  Was there not something almost fatherly in this strange greeting?

An event so singular might be interpreted in the happiest way:  What had Julia written her father, to change him so toward Noble?  And Noble was still dreamily interpreting as he walked down the street with The North End Daily Oriole idle in an idle hand.

He found a use for that hand presently, and, having sighed, lifted it to press it upon his brow, but did not complete the gesture.  As his hand came within the scope of his gaze, levelled on the unfathomable distance, he observed that the fingers held a sheet of printed paper; and he remembered Florence.  Instead of pressing his brow he unfolded the journal she had thrust upon him.  As he began to read, his eye was lustreless, his gait slack and dreary; but soon his whole demeanour changed, it cannot be said for the better.

THE NORTH END DAILY ORIOLE