"You can't get along without a bag, you see." Half a dozen yellow, insinuating things were laid out on the shining glass, and with a wonderful smile that was worth all the gold the earth contained to Martin, Joan made a choice--but not hastily, and not before she had inspected every other gold bag in the shop.

Even at eighteen she was woman enough to want to be quite certain that she possessed herself of the very best thing of its kind and would never have, in future, to feel jealous of one that might lie alluringly in the window.
"This one," she said finally.

"I'm quite sure." Martin didn't ask the price.

It was for his bride.

He picked it up and hung it over her wrist, said "The old address," nodded to the man,--who was just about to call attention to a tray of diamond brooches,--and led the way out, feeling at least six feet two.
And as Joan regained the street, she passed another milestone in her life.