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FIDELIA

before. He wanted to go on and on with Fidelia; he wanted to show her to Snelgrove and to men he knew on "the row" far down the boulevard. But she stopped when they reached Congress Street.

"You have to go to work now, I know," she said.

Dave denied it but she determined to return home.

She said "home" meaning Mrs. Fansler's in Evanston; but the word struck Dave with dismay at the thought of her departing in a few weeks, at the end of the college year.

"Where'll you be going when school's out?" he demanded.

"I?" she said; and considered for a moment. "Why, I've no special place to go. Dorothy Hess wants me to visit her for a while after graduation. What would you think of that?"

"Where does she live?" Dave asked.

"Streator, Illinois."

"That's a good idea. I'd do it."

She gazed at him seriously and asked: "You'd like me to?"

"I would. Will you?"

"I will."

He said: "Then I'll come down and call for you there."

"What?" she asked.

He was quivering. He had not known what he was to say until he had spoken it; now he planned aloud: "That's what we'll do, Fidelia. You go down to Streator; and I'll call for you. Will you?"

She held her breath for a moment and then asked: "Will I what, David?"