The girl turned across the field and walked away toward the street.

It was just then that Morrell's path crossed hers. She looked up, and their eyes met. Then, suddenly he was sure that he had seen her before. He lifted his hat, his most courteous smile upon his lips, and spoke:

"I wonder if you aren't somebody I used to know," he said eagerly. And now he wasn't at all sure that she was, and there was a puzzled earnestness in her eyes as he looked into hers.

"Why, yes, I am," she said with a little twinkling smile playing almost mischievously about the lips, "but so very unimportantly that I doubt if you remember it."

He had a feeling that she was quietly laughing at him, though her voice was very gentle, but the color came into her face. She had seen that he did not know who she was. He felt suddenly mortified.

"It does not seem to me that anyone could have known you once and not have remembered you," he said. "I felt there was something familiar about you when I first saw you, but I'm ashamed to say I cannot place you. I decided perhaps it was just that you reminded me of someone. Do you mind telling me who you are? If there was any acquaintance at all I'd like to renew it."

"Oh, it wasn't an acquaintance," she said quickly. "I was only in your algebra class. You probably never knew I existed."

He turned and looked sharply into her face, trying to trace out a memory of her.

"You weren't that littlest girl of all, were you? The one with brown curls who was promoted into the class in the middle of the semester and then beat us all in exams? The smartest one of the class?"

The girl laughed.

"I don't know about the smartness. I had the brown curls and I was small enough. I used to be very sensitive about that. My name is Daphne Deane."

There was a sweet dignity about her as she said it, and Keith Morrell's eyes lit up with interest as he watched her.

"Now I remember. Yes, you were smart. I remember being terribly mortified that you got a problem once that I couldn't master. I sat up half the next night till I'd worked every problem in the lesson perfectly. No more taking chances the way I had been doing, not with you in the class!"

Daphne laughed.

"And I remember being terribly afraid of you," she said. "I never studied so hard in my life as that winter, just because I didn't want you to get ahead of me."

He grinned.

"We must have been helping each other a lot, I should say, though neither of us was aware of it. But say! I still can't place you beyond algebra class. Where did you live? I surely must have met you elsewhere besides in school."

"I think not," said Daphne gravely. "I never moved in your social orbit at all. I lived just where I live now. In the house that used to be the gardener's house on your father's estate!"

She lifted pleasant amused eyes to watch his face. What would he think of that? And she saw a look of utter amazement come over his face.

"You don't mean it!" he said. "As near as that, and yet I didn't know you! I cannot understand."

"That's easy to explain," she said lightly. "While we were growing up Mother kept us very close at home. Always in our own yard, except when we went to school or church, and our way to those led around another block from the way you went. Besides, you were a little older than I was.