“Well, what?”

“Well, here’s her poem right at the top of it, and a very friendly item about her history mark of last June.  It doesn’t seem like Herbert to be so complimentary to Florence, all of a sudden.  Just struck me as rather curious; that’s all.”

“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Atwater, “it does seem a little odd, when you think of it.”

“Have you asked Florence if she had anything to do with getting out this week’s Oriole?”

“Why, no; it never occurred to me, especially after what Aunt Fanny told us,” said Mrs. Atwater.  “I’ll ask her now.”

But she was obliged to postpone putting the intended question.  “Sesame and Lilies” lay sweetly upon the seat of the chair that Florence had occupied; but Florence herself had gone somewhere else.

She had gone for a long, long ramble; and pedestrians who encountered her, and happened to notice her expression, were interested; and as they went on their way several of them interrupted the course of their meditations to say to themselves that she was the most thoughtful looking young girl they had ever seen.  There was a touch of wistfulness about her, too; as of one whose benevolence must renounce all hope of comprehension and reward.

Now, among those who observed her unusual expression was a gentleman of great dimensions disposed in a closed automobile that went labouring among mudholes in an unpaved outskirt of the town.  He rapped upon the glass before him, to get the driver’s attention, and a moment later the car drew up beside Florence, as she stood in a deep reverie at the intersection of two roads.

Uncle Joseph opened the door and took his cigar from his mouth.  “Get in, Florence,” he said.  “I’ll take you for a ride.”  She started violently; whereupon he restored the cigar to his mouth, puffed upon it, breathing heavily the while as was his wont, and added, “I’m not going home.  I’m out for a nice long ride.  Get in.”

“I was takin’ a walk,” she said dubiously.  “I haf to take a whole lot of exercise, and I ought to walk and walk and walk.  I guess I ought to keep on walkin’.”

“Get in,” he said.  “I’m out riding.  I don’t know when I’ll get home!”

Florence stepped in, Uncle Joseph closed the door, and the car slowly bumped onward.

“You know where Herbert is?” Uncle Joseph inquired.

“No,” said Florence, in a gentle voice.

“I do,” he said.  “Herbert and your friend Henry Rooter came to our house with one of the last copies of the Oriole they were distributing to subscribers; and after I read it I kind of foresaw that the feller responsible for their owning a printing-press was going to be in some sort of family trouble or other.  I had quite a talk with ’em and they hinted they hadn’t had much to do with this number of the paper, except the mechanical end of it; but they wouldn’t come out right full with what