MOBILE DIGITAL LIBRARY - SOCIETY OF YOUNG NIGERIAN ...

"Aha!" he said triumphantly. "You see another good of traveling! It stirs a person up. Ifyou can give me a lot of new facts, maybe I can pay you back by giving you some newideas.""I think," said Miss Midland, with a soft energy, "I think you can, indeed."IVA week after this was the first of April, and when Harrison, as was his wont, reached thereading-room a little before the opening hour, he found a notice on the door to the effectthat the fall of some plastering from a ceiling necessitated the closing of the reading-roomfor that day. A week of daily lunches and talks with Miss Midland had given him thehabit of communicating his ideas to her, and he waited inside the vestibule for her toappear. He happened thus, as he had not before, to see her arrival. Accompanied by anelderly person in black, who looked, even to Harrison's inexperienced eyes, like amaid-servant, she came rapidly in through the archway which led from the street to thecourt. Here, halting a moment, she dismissed her attendant with a gesture, and, quiteunconscious of the young man's gaze upon her, crossed the court diagonally with a free,graceful step. Observing her thus at his leisure, Harrison was moved to the first andalmost the last personal comment upon his new friend. He did not as a rule notice verykeenly the outward aspect of his associates. "Well, by gracious," he said to himself, "ifshe's not quite a good-looker!—or would be if she had money or gumption enough to put