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Show p-M M05mnMm Cowriqht.by Doulleday, Page & Company. In ink. He wished, too, that she hadn't said she was his forever. Suddenly he was seized with a horror hor-ror of her. Moisture brolre out heavily upon him; he felt a definite sickness, and, wishing for death, went forth upon the streets to walk and walk. He cared not whither, so that his feet took him in any direction away from Milla, since they were unable to take him away from himself of whom he had as great a horror. Her loving face was continually before him, and its sweetness sweet-ness made his flesh creep. Milla had been too sweet. When he met or passed people, it seemed to him that perhaps they were able to recognize upon him somewhere the marks of his low quality. "Softy! Ole sloppy fool!" he muttered, mut-tered, addresing himself. "Slushy ole mush! . . . Spooner!" And lie added, "Yours forever, kiddo !" Convulsions seemed about to seize him. Turning a corner with his head clown, he almost charged into Dora Yocum. She was homeward bound from a piano lesson, and carried a rolled leather ease of sheet music something he couldn't imagine Milla carrying and in her young girl's dress, which attempted to bs nothing e-ise, she looked as wholesome as cold spring water. Ramsey had always felt that she despised him and now, all at once, he thought that she was justified. Leper that he had become, he was unworthy un-worthy to be even touching his cap to her! And as she nodded and went briskly on, he would have given anything any-thing to turn and walk a little way with her, for it seemed to him that this might fumigate his morals. But he lacked the courage, and, besides, he ture to wring him with shame and pity, but was folJowed by another which electrified him, for out of school he did not lack imagination. What If Albert had reported his Illness too vividly to Milla? Milla wns so fond! What If, in her alarm, she should come here to the house to inquire of his mother about him? What if she tol l Mrs. Milholland they were "engaged"? The next moment Ramsey was projecting project-ing a conversation between bis mother and Milla in which the latter stated that she and Ramsey were soon to be married, that she regaided him as already al-ready virtually her husband, and demanded de-manded to nurse him. In a panic he fled from the house before be-fore breakfast, going out by way of a side door, and he crossed back yards and climbed back fences to reach Albert Al-bert Puxton the more swiftly. This creature, a Indies' man almost professionally, profes-sionally, was found exercising with an electric iron and a pair of flannel trousers trou-sers iu a basement laundry, by way of stirring his appetite for the morning meal. "See here, Albert," his friend said breathlessly. "I got a favor. I want you to go over to Mllla's " "I'm goin' to finish pressin' these trousers," Albert interrupted. "Then I've got my breakfast to eat." "Well, you could do this first," said Ramsey, hurriedly. "It wouldn't hurt you to do me this little favor first. You just slip over and see Milla for me, if she's up yet, and it' she Isn't, you better wait around till she is, because be-cause I want you to tell her I'm a whole lot better this morning. Tell her I'm pretty near pructick'ly all right again, Albert, and I'll prob'ly write her a note or something right soon or in a week or so, anyhow. Y'ou tell her " "Weil, you act pretty funny!" Albert exclaimed, fumbling in the pockets of his coat. "Why can't you go on over and tell her yourself? But just as it happens there wouldn't be any use your goin' over there, or me, either." "Why not?" "Milla ain't there," said Albert, still searching the pockets of his coat. "When we went by her house last night to tell her about your headache and stomach and all, why, her mother told us Milla'd gone up to Chicago yesterday yester-day afternoon with her aunt, and said she left a note for you, and she said If you were sick I better take It and give it to you. I was goin' to bring it over to your house after breakfast." He found it. "Here!" Ramsey thanked him feebly, and departed de-parted in a state of partial stupefaction, stupefac-tion, brought on by a glimpse of the instabilities of life. He had also, not relief, but a sense of vacancy and loss; for Milla, out of his reach, once more became mysteriously lovely. Pausing In an alley, he read her note. "Dearie : Thought I ought to call you up but over the 'phone is just nix for explanations as Mama and Aunt Jess would hear everything and thought I might seem cold to you not saying anything sweet on account of them listening and you would wonder why I was so cold when telling you good-by for a wile maybe weeks. It is tlds way Uncle I'urv wired Aunt Jess he has just taken in a big touring car on a debt and his vacation starts tomorrow to-morrow so if they were going to take a trip they better start right way so Aunt Jess invited me. Now dearie I have to pack and write this ln a hury so you will not be disappointed when you come by for the B. C. to-ulght. Do not go get some other girl and take her for I would hate her and nothing iu this world would make me false for one second to my kiddo boy. I do not know just when home again as the folks think I better stay up there for a visit at Aunt Jess and Uncle Purvs home in Chicago after the trip is over. But I think of you all the time and you must think of me every minute and believe your own dearie she will never no not for one second be false. So tell Sade and Alb good-by for me and do not be false to me any more than I would be to you and it will not be long till nothing more will Interrupt our sweet friendship." As a measure of domestic prudence, Ramsey tore the noie into irreparable fragments, but he did this slowly, and without experiencing any of the revulsion created by Milla's former missive. He was melancholy, aggrieved that she should treat him so. "Yei, sr; that quiet Ii!ta Milla's a regular old married woman by th'j time, Ramsey.' (TO BE CONTINUED.) fa ill imMlMM ft f THE FIRST KISS. Synopsis. With his grandfather, small Ramsey Milholland Is watching watch-ing the "Decoration Day Parade" ln the home town. The old gentleman, gentle-man, a veteran of the Civil war, endeavors to Impress the youngster young-ster with the significance of the great conflict, and many years afterward aft-erward the boy was to remember his words with startling vividness. In the schoolroom, a few years afterward, Hamsey Is not distinguished distin-guished ifor remarkable ability, though hlB pronouciced dislikes are arithmetic, "Recitations" and German. Ger-man. In sharp contrast to Ramsey's Ram-sey's backwardness is the precocity of little Dora Yocum, a young lady whom In his bitterness he denominates denomi-nates "Teacher's Pet." In high school, where he and Dora are classmates, Ramsey continues to feel that the girl delights to manifest mani-fest her superiority, and the vin-dictiveness vin-dictiveness he generates becomes alarming, culminating in the reso-"V reso-"V lution that some day he will "show" her. At a class picnic Ramsey Ram-sey is captured bag and baggage by Milla Rust, the class beauty, and endures the agonies of his first love. Ramsey's parents object to Milla and wish he'd taken up with Dora Yocum. 5 3 CHAPTER VI. Continued. 6 Milla hung weightily upon his arm, and they dawdled, drifting from one side of the pavement to the other as they slowly advanced. Albert and Sadie, Sa-die, uhead of them, called "good night" from a corner, before turning down the side street where Sadie lived; and then, presently, Itamsey and Milla were at the latter's gate. He went in with her, halting at the front steps. "Well, g'night, Milla," . he said. "Want to go out walking tomorrow night? Albert and Sadie are." "I can't tomorrow night," she told him with obvious regret. "Isn't if the worst luck ! I got an aunt comin' to visit from Chicago, and she's crazy about playing 'Five Hundred,' and mama and papa said I haf to stay in to make four to play it. Site's liable to be here three or four days, and I guess I got to be around home pretty much all tin time she's here. It's the worst luck '" He was doleful, but ventured to be literary. ' Vell, what can't be helped must be mdured. I'll come around when she"!1 gone." He movjd as if to depart, but she still retained his arm and did not prepare pre-pare to relinquish it. "Well" he said. "Well what, Itamsey?" "WeJl g'night." She glanced up at the dark front of the house. "I guess the family's gone to bed," she suid absently. "I s'pose so." "Well, good night, Ramsey." She said tills, but still did not release his arm, and suddenly, in a fluster, he felt that the time he dreaded had come. Somehow, without knowing where, except ex-cept that it was somewhere upon what seemed to be a blurred face too full of obstructing features, he kissed her. She turned instantly away in the darkness, her hands over her cheeks ; and in a panic Itamsey wondered If he hadn't make a dreadful mistake. "S'cuse me!" he said, stumbling toward to-ward the gate. "Well, I guess I got to be gettin' along back home." lie woke In the morning to a great self-loathlr.g ; he had kissed a girl. Mingled with the loathing was a curious curi-ous pride in the very fact that caused the loathing, but the pride did not last long. He came downstairs morbid to breakfast, and continued this mood afterward. At noon Albert Paxton brought him a note which Milla had asked Sadie to ask Albert to give him. "Dearie: I am just wondering if you thought as much about something bo sweet that happened last night as I did you know what. I think it was the sweetest thing. I send you one with this note and I hope you will think It is a sweet one. I would give you a reaJ one if you were here now and I hope you would think it was sweeter still than the one I put in this note. It is the sweetest thing now you are mine and I am yours forever kiddo. If you come around about friday eve It will be all right, aunt Jess will be gone back home by then so come early ami we will get Sade and Alb to go to the band Concert. Don't forget what 1 said about ray putting something weo in this note, and I hope you will think It Is a sweet one but not as aweet as the real sweet one I would Jlke to At this point Itamsey impulsively tore tke note Into small pieces. He turned cold as his Imagination pro-fleeted pro-fleeted a sketch of his mother In the ct of reading this missive, and of tier expression as she read the sentence: sen-tence: "It Is the sweetest thing now you''ar mine and I am yours forever kiddo." He wished that Milla hadn't written "kiddo." She called him that, sometime!, bur In her warm little voice the word cemed.r.jt all what It did Pausing in an Alley, He Read Her Note. considered himself unfit to be seen walking with her. He had a long afternoon of anguishes, an-guishes, these becoming most violent when he tried to face the problem of his future course toward Milla. He diti not face it at all, in fact, but merely mere-ly writhed, and had evolved nothing when Friday evening was upon him and Milla waiting for him t take her to the "band concert" with "Alb and Sade." lie made shift to seek a short interview Willi Albert, just before dinner. din-ner. "I got a pretty rotten headache, and my stomach's upset, too." he said, drooping upon the Puxtons' fence. "I been gettin' worse every minute. You and Sadie go by Milla's, Albert, and (ell her If I'm not there by ha'-pas'-seven, tell her not to wait for me any longer." "How do you mean 'wait'?" Albert inquired. "You don't expect her to come pokin' along with Sadie and me, do you? She'll keep on sittin' there at home just the same, because she wouldn't have anything else to do, if you don't come like she expects you to. She hush't got any way to stop wait-in'!" wait-in'!" At this, Ramsey moaned, without affectation. af-fectation. "I don't expect I can, Allien." Al-lien." he said. "I'd like to If I could, but the way It looks now, you tell her I wouldn't be much suprised maybe I was startin' In with typhoid fever or pretty near anything at all." He moved away, concluding feebly: "I guess I better crawl on home, Albert, while I'm still able to walk some. You tell her the way it looks now I'm liable fo be right sick." And the next morning he woke to the chafings of remorse, picturing a Milla somewhat restored In charm waiting hopefully at the gate, even after the half-past seven, and then, us time passed and the sound of the distant dis-tant horns came faintly through the darkness, going sadly to her room perhaps weeping there. It was a pic- |