Williams Sketches

m. clock chiming the full hour came like a surprise to Billy, at least. Winthrop stayed to say goodnight, and Billy went on down to his room alone. He lit a cigarette and pulled at it meditatively, as he walked slowly under the rustling arches that the elms made in the summer darkness over his head. " Mrs. Winthrop is a corker," he said, half aloud. " And what a nice little girl Winthrop's sister is ! I had forgotten she was so pretty? no ; not that either exactly. She is more like the arbutus the fellows get in the spring. That's it." There was a note stuck behind the card on Withers' door. Billy lit a match and read it while he was fumbling for his keys. It was brief and to the point. "You're a quitter. "(Signed) The Band Of Mercy." It was in Bellew's handwriting, and Billy laughed and tore it up. Somehow he felt very respectable and decent. He even thought he would read Sandy's ten pages, and would have, if he had known where they began. He did not, however, so he took a cold bath instead, and then tumbled into bed. Long after their visitor had goneand her mother was asleep, Elsie Win- throp's light still burned. It was very late and the village street was dark and forsaken. The girl stood at her open window, looking out into the brooding night. There was a photograph in her hand and she was studying it intently. It was a picture of a young man with very much towsled hair and with a foot ball in his arms. " He has changed," she said slowly at las...