evening we've always sat out here, even those two
times when it was drizzly. It's so much nicer."

"We'll have to do something or other, of course,"
her mother said.

"What like?"

"I was thinking-----" Mrs. Adams paused. "Well,
of course we could hardly put off asking him to din-
ner, or something, much longer."

Alice was not enthusiastic; so far from it, indeed,
that there was a melancholy alarm in her voice.
"Oh, mama, must we? Do you think so?"

"It looks queer," Mrs. Adams said. "It isn't the
thing at all for a young man to come as much as he
does, and never more than just barely meet your
father and mother. No. We ought to do some-
thing."

"But a dinner!" Alice objected. "In the first
place, there isn't anybody I want to ask. There isn't
anybody I would ask."

"I didn't mean trying to give a big dinner," her
mother explained. "I just mean having him to din-
ner. That mulatto woman, Malena Burns, goes out
by the day, and she could bring a waitress. We can

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