“Dearest Minnie,” the note inside said, “I had them matched to my own thatch, and I think they’ll match yours.  And since, in the words of the great Herbert Spencer, things that match the same thing match each other—!  What do you say?—­Barnes.”

“P.  S.—­I love you.  I feel like a damn fool saying it, but heaven knows it’s true.”

“P.  P. S.—­Still love you.  It’s easier the second time.”

“N.  B.—­I love you—­got the habit now and can’t stop writing it.—­B.”

Well, I had to keep calm and attend to business, but I was seething inside like a Seidlitz powder.  Every few minutes I’d reread the letter under the edge of the stand, and the more I read it the more excited I got.  When a woman’s gone past thirty before she gets her first love-letter, she isn’t sure whether to thank providence or the man, but she’s pretty sure to make a fool of herself.

Thoburn came to the news stand on his way out with the ice-cutting gang to the pond.

“Last call to the dining-car, Minnie,” he said. “’Will you—­won’t you—­will you—­won’t you—­will you join the dance?’”

“I haven’t any reason for changing my plans,” I retorted.  “I promised the old doctor to stick by the place, and I’m sticking.”

“As the man said when he sat down on the flypaper.  You’re going by your heart, Minnie, and not by your head, and in this toss, heads win.”

But with my new puffs on the back of my head, and my letter in my pocket, I wasn’t easy to discourage.  Thoburn shouldered his pick and, headed by Doctor Barnes, the ice-cutters started out in single file.  As they passed the news stand Doctor Barnes glanced at me, and my heart almost stopped.

“Do they—­is it a match?” he asked, with his eyes on mine.

I couldn’t speak, but I nodded “yes,” and all that afternoon I could see the wonderful smile that lit up his face as he went out.  It made him almost good-looking.  Oh, there’s nothing like love, especially if you’ve waited long enough to be hungry for it, and not spoiled your taste for it by a bite here and a piece of a heart there, beforehand, so to speak.

Miss Cobb stopped at the news stand on her way to the gymnasium.  She was a homely woman at any time, and in her bloomers she looked like a soup-bone.  Under ordinary circumstances she’d have seen the puffs from the staircase and have asked what they cost and told me they didn’t match, in one breath.  But she had something else on her mind.  She padded over to the counter in her gym shoes, and for once she’d forgotten her legs.

“May I speak to you, Minnie?” she asked.

“You mostly do,” I said.  “There isn’t a new rule about speaking, is there?”

“This is important, Minnie,” she said, rolling her eyes around as she always did when she was excited.  “I’m in such a state of ex—­I see you bought the puffs!  Perhaps you will lend them to me if we arrange for a country dance.”